An Acceptable Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet) (original 1989; edition 2007)

This was an ok book. I’m learning that, for me, L’Engle’s YA books are a bit hit or miss. This one was more of a miss. Maybe it was a lot because of Zachary, who I never got to like in House Like a Lotus, and he definitely was so much worse this time around. Maybe it’s Poli; I’ve now read thru her whole series of books, and I haven’t yet decided if she’s a real girl or not. Super intelligent like her mom, and she’s got her human foibles like the rest of us, but she seems almost the same at 18 as she was at 12 or 13; she just gets kissed a lot more. To her credit, she makes a hard choice that almost everyone (including me) questions, because it’s the right thing to do, and the end of the book finds her more mature and considering what she’s learned for her experience, but I was also so ready to be done with the book looooong before the end that I didn’t care quite as much.
Maybe the whole time-shift aspect of these books just is so familiar that it has lost some of its appeal. It’s not entirely the same as A Swiftly Tilting Planet or Many Waters, but there are an awful lot of similarities to both of those books.
It wasn’t terrible, it’s nice to see some of the old characters brought back, and Bishop Colubra is pretty cool. It’s just not going to be one that I’m eager to read again, like some others in the series. ( )

Poly is a very interesting character but this book is the first one about her that really makes me think of her as a Murray. Zachary is a fool but it is always interesting to see how he appears in so many stores. Plus this story takes another good stab at explaining time travel. ( )

A story about time travel, the mysterious cosmic power of love, and sacrifice. It both fits and doesn't fit into the Time books, and L'Engle includes threads of her other series in there. ( )

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This book was just okay. Maybe I'm a bit meh about Christian fantasy/sf in general, or specifically, but I did enjoy the moments of particle physics and the apologia for all things Jesus. (Sure, time travel is fine because even though you're going back a thousand years before the time of Christ, his spirit is eternal, etc., etc.)

MAYBE I would have liked this a lot more if it hadn't been super-primitive societies performing ritual sacrifice and we're supposed to go back and civilize the bastards. Or something like that.

Hmmm. Well, I do like certain ASPECTS of this. Like any time period that is ours. That's pretty cool. But when what should have been the cool bit, like TIME TRAVEL, something between my shoulder-blades started itching and I just wanted to be through this. I'm afraid that it didn't age all that well.

Which is a shame, because I used to love the rough-and-tumble mix of science and religion in the previous books.

I think it is a case of, "I've changed, you haven't. Sorry, L'Engle." ( )