An Acceptable Time (Time, #5)
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An Acceptable Time (Time, #5) (O'Keefe Family, #4)
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3.83 of 5 stars

A flash of lightning, quivering ground, and, instead of her grandparents' farm, Polly sees mist and jagged mountains — and coming toward he... read full description


reviews

Jan 21, 2009
Jenn rated it: 3 of 5 stars
The first one hundred pages were pretty boring, BUT then she got into a good story. I think this book needed a better editor. I enjoyed the fact that she makes the point that even if you do the right thing and help somebody, you don't have to be friends if they have mistreated you. It's not like you have to open yourself up to abuse.
1 comment like (1 person liked it)
Jan 09, 2009
Jesse rated it: 4 of 5 stars
Okay, so how many times have I read the four books that proceeds this and still managed to be completely unaware of the existence of this one? Picked from my sister's bookshelf and devoured over a quick excursion home for Christmas, I could never quite shake the feeling that this was a bit of a step down from the other four. Polly just isn't nearly as compelling a character as her mother or her uncles (though she does grow on you), Alex could very well be L'Engle's most relentlessly tiresome c More...
1 comment like (4 people liked it)
May 20, 2011
Cyndy rated it: 3 of 5 stars
Although I'm long past the age where I should be reading Madeleine L'Engle's books for young adults, a few years ago I happened upon a copy of An Acceptable Time in a bookstore and snapped it up. I've read everything of Madeleine L'Engle's that I've been able to find in print, and wasn't about to let my age stop me from reading more about one of my favorite L'Engle families.

::: An Acceptable Plot :::

An Acceptable Time brings us back to Poly (now Polly) O'Keefe, the daughter o More...
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Jan 24, 2011
Kerith rated it: 4 of 5 stars
Ms L'Engle returns to her Time series in this lovely novel, which also takes place directly after A House Like A Lotus. In it we return to Meg Murry's childhood home with her daughter Polly O'Keefe, who has come there to stay with her grandparents and be homeschooled for awhile. Other familiar characters like Zachary Gray and Dr. Louise appear.
While staying with her grandparents, Polly inadvertently goes through a "time gate" and finds herself 3000 years in the past, with the Peo More...
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Aug 13, 2010
John rated it: 3 of 5 stars
A fitting conclusion to the series. L'Engle's Time Quintet has always been about the passage of time, so a final book that follows a new character, granddaughter to the Drs. Murry and daughter to Calvin and Meg seems fitting. As time passes and we grow up, our children come up behind us and live life in ways both similar to and different from we might ever have imagined.

This book follows the time travelling journey's of Meg's daughter Polly. From the opening images on the Murry land, More...
1 comment like (1 person liked it)
Jul 02, 2010
John rated it: 2 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here
0 comments like (2 people liked it)
Nov 16, 2009
Kendra rated it: 5 of 5 stars
An acceptable time
by madeleine L'Engle
pp343usa
bantante doubleday dell books for young readers
isbn 9780440208143

try haveing been walking to anormal rock and suddenly went back around 300 years and wondering if this is real.In this book it show very clearly how polloy feels excited,happy and a little scared and who wouldn't be back then anything could happen someone could kidnapp you and nobody would know.

I hated the part where zachary was so mean ev More...
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Jul 08, 2009
Emily rated it: 4 of 5 stars
For any of you already familiar with Madeleine L'Engle's 'Time' quartet, well, this is the fifth. I did not know there was another one of these until I was looking around at other books by this author wondering if they were worth reading (does anyone know anything about her 'Austin Family' series books? Are they worth it?).

It was definitely a 'later' story as far as writing style and characters from the original quartet. Polly (who is Meg Murray-O'Keefe's daughter) goes to live More...
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Nov 30, 2011
Althea rated it: 2 of 5 stars
This book mixes characters that L'Engle readers have previously met in both her Murry and Austin family books, although it's a stand-alone novel. Two college-age folks, Polly and Zachary, along with a family friend who is a retired bishop, pass through a "time-gate" into 3000 years ago, and a tribe of celtic-influenced Native Americans, some of whom, regrettably, think that strange and seemingly powerful strangers would make an excellent blood sacrifice to bring rain.
This book is More...
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Feb 26, 2010
Lizz rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I get that L'Engle really wants to focus the action and perspective on the children and the occasional non-parent trusted adult in her books. I understand that each character gets "their" time, seasons change and she didn't want to go the route of LM Montgomery and Anne.

What frustrates me is the "mother" role that the mothers fall into. Mrs. Austin, Kate and Meg all seem to blend together in their calm, skirt-wearing, bland, there but unobtrusive, dispensing tranq More...
7 comments like (2 people liked it)
Apr 17, 2011
Mari rated it: 2 of 5 stars
Well, I feel like I should have read something before delving into An Acceptable Time. It was good, for sure, but I felt like I should have known some of these characters before I went into reading about them--the old fogeys excepted, of course. I meant more along the lines of Polly and Zachary Gray. But I suppose it didn't really matter so much, since they were all being introduced to new sets of characters.

It was different from the other stories, that's for sure. And I was slightly g More...
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Dec 28, 2008
Kirsten rated it: 1 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here
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Apr 28, 2010
Robby rated it: 4 of 5 stars
This book was another quite confusing book by Madeline L'Engle. That's actually a good thing. No matter how confused one gets at the beginning, it gets explained in due time. Reading the other L'Engle books helps understand quantum physics, as well as any prior knowledge. I suggest reading up on quantum physics and 'tesseracts' before reading this. The plot itself, however, is very good. Time traveling, love over 3000 years, quantum physics and more adventures with the Murrays. Awesome. This boo More...
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Nov 12, 2010
Danielle rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I read the whole rest of this series last year and for some reason left this till now. I'll admit, I didn't like this one as much as the rest in the Time series. This is mostly due to the characters, I just didn't find them as endearing as I had with Meg and Charles Wallace. I haven't read the Austin or O'Keefe series, so maybe that would have given me a bit more background on Polly/Zachary. In any case, a bad L'Engle is basically equivalent to a good chick lit book, so it's really very subj More...
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Aug 31, 2009
Annie rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I liked this book because it's Madeleine L'Engle. It referenced several characters and elements from the time series, which is fun and also appropriate since it's technically a part of that series. But it wasn't my favorite.

I couldn't find the point in all of it. In the other four books there is an objective, something distinct they are working toward whether they understand it or not. Even in Many Water when Sandy and Denny happen into the past they discover what needs to happen More...
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Jan 31, 2010
Alice rated it: 5 of 5 stars
beautifully written special edition. by now, some authors lose touch with thier series and begin to ramble on about some BS that should never have been written. Ms. L'Engle is not one of them. this book, like all the other ones in the Time Quartet (or Quintet, now, i guess), involves the traveling of time and space. however, the traveler is someone both new and old: Polly, Meg's eldest child.
Polly is visiting her grandparents when she inadverdently steps through a tesseract that takes her More...
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Mar 25, 2009
DL rated it: 1 of 5 stars
An Acceptable Time does have a good message. It teaches truth in that integrated, mostly-subtle way that good books should, and in this is similar to the other books in the "Time" "Series." (If, indeed, a series it really can be called...)

The difference is that this book is boring. Yes, it continues the story of the Murry clan, and yes, it involves druids and blood sacrifice and time travel, (in a way quite parallel to A Swiftly Tilting Planet) and yes, it doe More...
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May 23, 2011
Kate rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I recently read A Wrinkle in Time, which I thought I was re-reading but apparently for most of my adult life I've had that book confused with several others, including The Not-just-anybody Family and this book. All I remember from An Acceptable Time was a) the cover (that red cloak!), and b) the idea of time circles. I can pretty distinctly recall a scene early on in the story where the main character, a young girl, is wandering around in the forest behind her house and finds a stone wall, whe More...
0 comments like (2 people liked it)
Nov 01, 2011
Sarah Bringhurst rated it: 2 of 5 stars
I've been a fan of Madeleine L'Engle since childhood, and read many of her books, both for children and adults. I've never really read one I didn't like. Until this one. Maybe my tastes have just changed and I need to go back and reread her other books, but An Acceptable Time really didn't do it for me. The plot was contrived, the way Polly interacted with the "natives" read like some kind of really old, non-PC cowboys and indians book, and I just never got involved in the story at all More...
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Jan 28, 2010
LaDawn rated it: 5 of 5 stars
I love Madeleine L'Engle. A couple of things stood out for me in this book that are so different from the books written for today's kids: The main teen-age character actually OBEYS her grandparents and keeps her promises to them, and, when something happens, she IMMEDIATELY goes to tell her grandparents. She trusts them to advise her and help her.
This was written in 1989, so it wasn't all that long ago, yet today, most of the books I read for YAs have the kids haring off on their own with More...
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Apr 19, 2010
Mickie rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I am drawn to Madeleine L'Engle and also confused by her..she is not always easy to read and I sometimes fall into syntax potholes that confuse me--when did it get dark? Who just said that? Sometimes I can't figure it out. Having said that, there is something magnetic in her stories that I love...
Favorite quote of this book:

When observing the seemingly contradictory belebratory feast after an inconclusive battle and while tensions still ran high, The Bishop says:
"I t More...
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Jul 13, 2011
Sheila rated it: 3 of 5 stars
I liked this book but I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the understanding, adventurous people who seemed to constantly have interesting things happen them and their children. The Murry parents are almost unrecognizable in this book!

What about when Mr. Murry was stranded on another planet? Or, when Charles Wallace was ill and Meg and crew 'fixed' him? How about when the twins went thru to another time? Since when did the Murrys not believe in the incredible and unbelievab More...
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Apr 12, 2011
Juliana rated it: 3 of 5 stars
It's been years since I've read any of Madeleine L'Engle's books for youth, so I was excited to discover another book in the _Wrinkle In Time_ series. I didn't realize that the Wrinkle In Time series overlapped with the Austins books, but now that I know that, I may have to find the books about the Austins by L'Engle and read those, too. I love how L'Engle touches on mystical experiences and wrestles with matters of religion. My only complaint about the book is that a story involving the main ch More...
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Mar 03, 2011
Sara rated it: 5 of 5 stars
Oh my goodness I thought it would be hard to top the last book in this series but I was wrong because this is probably the best book yet! This is very different because it does not star Maggie and her family but her daughter, Polly. She is perfectly fine on her small island home with her grandparents but she starts seeing a strange girl and it turns out that the fast has overlapped with the present so Polly keeps going back and forth between time periods. Though at one point she gets stuck in th More...
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Jan 24, 2012
Denise added it
I'm reading this for Banned Books Week. I've read it before but love Polly and always love the Murry house. I alwasy feel cozy and at home reading this series.
0 comments like (1 person liked it)
Aug 08, 2011
Maxx rated it: 2 of 5 stars
meh. I listened to this book. I didn't like the reader, but the story was pretty lame. I didn't like the characters very much at all. The only one that wasn't super annoying to me was the Bishop. I couldn't stand half of the characters and the rest of them were fairly tolerable.

The story moved painfully slow, and was very very dull. There weren't any parts in the story that made me think, or wonder or feel excited or nervous. It was just slow and boring. I think a big part of me not More...
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Oct 30, 2009
Amy rated it: 5 of 5 stars
In many ways, I enjoyed this book more than any Madeleine L'Engle I've read so far (and I've read a lot of her books this year). It had more story and less philosophy & theology - more "showing," less "telling." I thought the idea of the story was fascinating - that time operates in spirals and, potentially, a time gate could open between two different periods of time because they're right next to each other in the spiral. I love the way L'Engle plays with the idea of time an More...
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Jan 24, 2010
Chelseabelle rated it: 2 of 5 stars
This is the farthest throw from the series, and it's the least interesting. The majority of the first 2/3 of the book is references to the previous ones, and a tiny bit of background on the story to come, but not much in the way of interesting material. Once you get into the action it seems short-lived.

To be honest, this is the most dissappointing of L'Engle's books to me. She took a mediocre story line and combined it with characters from other books of hers and tried to make it wo More...
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Nov 07, 2009
Callie rated it: 2 of 5 stars
This book was better than the one before it, but it still didn't sit right with me. L'Engle doesn't seem to find the balance between conveying a general idea of spiritual awareness and pounding her own ideas into the minds of the reader. In the first three books she brings across the idea that there are higher powers at work than humankind realizes, and that we all have a part to play in the universe. Simple, straightforward, and adaptable to any belief system. This book is more like taking the More...
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Jan 24, 2011
Henry rated it: 3 of 5 stars
This book is about a girl named Polly whose family has the ability to travel in time. She visits her family in England where their home was full of ancient power. There is conflicts over crops back in time which Polly and his family will have to travel and help.


I didn't really get this book at first because it seemed to jump right into the action without any explanation. Later did i know that there was a first book to the series which explains my misunderstanding. This b More...
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