Review: The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

I love Mitch Albom’s previous novels (he sits alongside Nicholas Sparks in the ‘authors who succeed in making me cry’category.) The Five People You Meet in Heaven would easily make my top ten. As a result, there was a high expectation for this book (first impressions – I loved the cover.)

It focuses mainly on three people: A young girl (Sarah) who wants to stop time forever. An older man (Victor) who wants to do all he can to extend his time and finally Dor, the time-keeper, who becomes obsessed with measuring time and eventually becomes Father Time. He is sent on a journey to find Sarah and Victor in order to be able to complete his mission and escape the prison he has found himself in.

This book is only 256 pages and so I read it over the course of twenty-four hours. The chapters are short which for me makes it very easy to read. Mitch has a very relaxed style to his writing that I love and therefore I find that the themes he covers are easier to digest as a result.

I became very involved with the characters. I felt sorry for Dor who didn’t realise the importance of his decision prior to becoming Father Time and I really cared for Sarah who cannot see how appreciated she is. Victor’s story was a little frustrating as I could see how his decision was going to affect others. I became very attached to these characters and it isn’t until the last few pages that you begin to understand what is going on with the story and this meant that I couldn’t stop reading.

I feel that you are either going to get something from this novel or you are not. I certainly did take something from it. It made me look at time a little differently. I am guilty of having moments in my life where I have either wished for more time or sat there wishing my life away as I clock watch for home time and not always making the most of the time I do have.

Although I can see that this book could come across as a little preachy, I didn’t mind being reminded that time is precious and it is about how you spend the time you have and the importance of spending it doing the things you love with the people who matter.

This book has fast become one of my favourites of the authors. I look forward to his next one.

(The Time-Keeper is published by Sphere, September 2013 and is available in most bookshops and electonically.)

by

Novel Kicks

About Novel Kicks/Laura...
Novel Kicks was founded in 2009 and is run by Laura who is currently living in Hampshire, and lives with husband, Chris and her cat, Buddy. She would love to be a writer. She’s trying to write the novel she thinks so much about. She’s loved reading and writing since ‘Creative Writing’ classes in primary school. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything she can get her hands on, she loves reading, dancing like a loon, and watching Project Runway and Ugly Betty (her two TV guilty pleasures.) She also has an obsession with chocolate and Jammie Dodgers.