An Acceptable Time

3.5 stars.

The fifth and final book in Madeleine L???Engle???s TIME quintet is An Acceptable Time, a story about Polly, the daughter of Meg and Calvin, the kids we first met in that now-classic children???s science fiction novel A Wrinkle in Time. (Polly is also featured in a different L???Engle series about the O???Keefe family, and An Acceptable Time is the fourth and final book of that series. Slightly confusing, I know.)

One autumn while Polly is visiting her famous grandparents at their house in the country, Polly begins to see people who shouldn???t exist whenever she???s near that big rock where Meg and Charles Wallace used to go to think and watch the stars when they were kids. One of the people she sees is a girl who looks like a Native American and turns out to be a druid. There are also men carry... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/an-acceptable-time/

Although this book features the next generation of the Murry-O'Keefe family, it is considered the fifth book in the Time series. After reading through all five, I think that Wrinkle and Wind definitely have a distinct, much more science-fiction feel, whereas Waters, Planet, and Acceptable Time mostly skip an aspect of science and focus on the experiences of people who have time traveled. As with A Swiftly Tilting Planet, I have a bit of skepticism of the depiction of native peoples in this book; it's not so much that there's anything offensive, but it's just that these seem to be an entirely made-up people with generalized characteristics. I would have liked to have seen a foreword or something that explained any research L'Engle might have done into the original people of the area she was writing about.

I love getting to see the Murry grandparents, and I always love the way L'Engle explores ideas of the power of love and complexities of faith. But this book falls short for me in a lot of ways. The first half of the book includes various folks going back and forth across the time gate, with Polly and the modern-day people who care about her sitting around and discussing it endlessly. And I've always felt in the various appearances of Zachary Gray in L'Engle books that I can't understand why the young women in the books seem to find Zachary at all compelling. He just mopes around and then manipulates them by saying things like, “Aren't you glad to see me?” or “I thought we were friends.” I think I'll just stick with Wrinkle and Wind for further re-reads of this series.

Short review: This is the first time I have read this book. It is the last book of the Wrinkle in Time series and the fourth book in the Polly O'Keefe series. (So merges the two series). As a stand alone book I really liked it. I thought the story line was good, the characters were good, I always like the way L'Engle merges elements of fantasy and science fiction in her young adult books. I also like that there is sense of timelessness (you cannot quite place the time of the setting) in L'Engle's books. I think that is a gift of hers that many modern writers will not be able to duplicate. What will kids in 10 years or so think about constant references to texting or particular cultural references.

But as a part of the Wrinkle in Time series it seemed disjointed. Polly's grandather Alex (Meg and Charles Wallace's father) is completely different in this book than the previous ones. Here he is a bit paranoid and a bit of a prick. Standing alone from those books, his character is fine, but it is a different person than the previous books. It is like changing Darrins in Bewitched and thinking no one will notice.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/acceptable-time/