Book Review: “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle
Book Details:
It was a dark and stormy night.
XEM THÊM :
Book Review
“Beware of pride and arrogance, Charles, for they may betray you.”
Themes: Battle the darkness inside and outside of you. Communication skills are a gift. Accept your flaws. Recognize your ignorance. All things are subject to love. Be genuine.
Character Development: The characters and their growth in this book bothered me. Meg, the main character, generally came across as quite irritating and unwelcoming. She simply appeared to despise herself completely. I thought it was ridiculous how often she made remarks about how ugly and stupid she was. Although she did, I don't think it's inappropriate for characters to start out lacking confidence and get it along the way. I just thought this was a bit much. Additionally, Meg and her friend Calvin briefly fell in love, although it happened very suddenly and looked out of the blue (especially for a middle grade novel). Instead of pursuing a sexual relationship, I believe it would have been great to see her forge a close friendship.
Plot/Pacing: I thought the first third or so was interesting, maybe even the first half. It had an original idea, and some of the supporting characters that were introduced were odd and entertaining, but after that, things kind of died down. The main character complained a lot, there were points when it felt repetitious, and the conclusion was incredibly unsatisfying.
Writing Style: Although I thought the writing was mostly humorous, nothing particularly stood out or was particularly memorable.
“Bingeability”: mild The story isn't very long, and you'll be curious to find out what occurs, so you'll keep reading.
Emotional Investment: Low. I couldn't get emotionally attached since I found the characters to be so irritating.
Windows and Mirrors: self-esteem issues
“I don’t understand it any more than you do, but one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to understand things for them to be.”
Overall Thoughts: I wasn't a great fan of this, which may be an unpopular viewpoint. The conclusion was anticlimactic and resolved far too fast. Even though it was intriguing to see how religious and scientific views were contrasted, there were certain religious overtones that appeared out of place. Additionally, I believed that some of the ideas and symbolism were a little hazy. For instance, she used the force of love to combat "IT," a world controlled by a gigantic brain that took away everyone's free will, while they were also striving to fight the darkness before it overcame the planet. Additionally, the darkness was meant to stand for all evil (and essentially anything and everything bad that mankind go through), thus when they vanquished the darkness... Was the world really just perfect? I'm aware that this is a series, so perhaps further novels will address this, but I just never quite grasped what they were attempting to achieve (other than rescuing her dad). I admire the concept of utilizing love to combat evil and darkness, but I found the implementation to be unclear. Finally, given that it was written in the 1960s, a lot of the vocabulary may be difficult for modern-day children to understand (especially kids who are emergent bilinguals and are learning English as a second language).
The novel, however, was SO MUCH BETTER than the most current film version, I would say. Yikes.
Recommendation: The only intended use of this in the classroom would be as an option for individual reading. It's up to you whether or not adults utilize it with kids at home! This book is really OK; it's just that I didn't enjoy it. Go for it if you want to share it with your children because it holds a special place in your heart. If you believe your family would enjoy it, I think this would make a terrific read-aloud.
I appreciate you reading my review. If you've read this one or have any questions about it, please leave a comment and stay tuned for my next review!
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