Book Review | The Time Keeper

I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven and was pleasantly surprised with Mitch Albom's writing abilities. Unfortunately, my previous reading experience led me astray, indefinitely. I read the first page of The Time Keeper and truly believed there would be a great story ahead. Wrong. I was completely wrong. I find it interesting that my peers found this book so inspirational and wonderful and la-di-da-di-da, because in all reality, I was frustrated with this book.

We're introduced to three people throughout the entirety of the book who carry the story: Dor, Victor, and Sara. Dor is from a different time period, much earlier than that of Victor and Sarah. Dor decides that it would be a good idea to measure time which backfires to a certain extent; he figures out how to measure time, inevitably to be punished for it. He is made to be Father Time. As Father Time, Dor watches over those who complain about not having enough time or take their time for granted. Enter Victor and Sara. Victor is this old, rich man who tries to cheat time because he is very ill and Sara is a teenage girl that feels she should give up on life with the lack of a father figure and boy troubles getting the best of her.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I liked the first page. Hell, the first two pages were promising! But with every page, my awe slowly withered down to shock. It wasn't a good kind of shock either. The main characters of this book were so far from any of Mitch Albom's other fictional characters, it hurt my soul. I kid you not.

THE GOOD:

To be honest, there wasn't that much good in this book so I'm going to skip this section and go straight for the jugular.

THE BAD:

I had several problems with this novel. First of all, the character development was close to terrible. At first, I felt bad for Victor. Then poof, my sympathy and compassion disintegrated. His life and story were not expanded upon nearly enough and any inkling of a connection I had or potentially could have made, was ruined. Now, I wanted to like Victor but there was a huge disconnect with Sara. I flat out could not stand the character of Sara, which was probably due to the poor writing with her whiny and repetitive teenage perspective. There was no depth to her character, sadly making her come across as an annoying teenager, complaining about life and wishing it away when things didn't go her way. It lacked originality. Unless the name Dor constitutes as an original name but even then, his name hardly helped push the plot along. Freaking Dor.

I sound like I'm bashing this book. A perfectly fine book in theory, written by Mitch Albom, who has proven he has a knack for writing. I'll admit it: I am kind of bashing this book. It was just such a let down. Authors are seen as these perfection infested beings. They are supposed to write something worthy of resting upon a glistening pedestal way above any of us “average” people but here's the thing: Mitch Albom might have been aiming too high in order to stay on that pedestal when he wrote this book, his fifth to be exact.

Overall, this book seemed to have nothing but good intentions and honest life lessons about using our time wisely, but ironically, the time throughout the book didn't strike me as being used wisely. Plus, it was a really slow read. Mr. Albom tried to make it effortless, thought provoking, deep, and well written; it missed the mark. There was no spark. Without that spark, it's just another mediocre book lost in the void.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars