Different but still worth reading
"An Acceptable Time" is the final installment in Madeleine L'Engle's beloved Time Quintet, and it is rather different in tone from the previous books. The plot centers around Polly, Meg and Calvin's daughter, as she visits her Murry grandparents in New England. Somehow time circles nearby have been opened, allowing Polly to cross over into prehistoric times.
Whereas the threats of the previous books came from without the Murry circle of friends and family, in this story Polly is put in considerable danger by a friend, and then the challenge becomes whether to do the right thing and help the person who selfishly harmed you, or leave them to suffer the consequences of their own bad decisions.
I liked this book, despite the fact that it is very different from the adventures of the previous generation. The tone is just a little more downcast, as it revolves around human sacrifice and betrayal, and Alex and Kate Murry have grown less open-minded in their older age, refusing at first to believe that Polly has truly time-traveled. That was slightly hard to swallow considering all they had seen (Alex Murry having himself tessered in the first book).
But the writing was still captivating, and I very much wanted to find out what happened in the course of the novel (even though I've read it before) so I would still recommend the book.
