A Wrinkle in Time

Idk man. This is such a classic children's book and I've heard so much good things about it, but honestly it fell a little flat for me. I think I would've appreciated it a lot more if I had read it for the first time as a child instead of an adult almost in my mid-30s though.

It isn't so much that it was childish - in fact, I think this book was shockingly mature in a lot of its elements. In fact, I felt like it had some themes that were almost a bit too politically charged for a children's book imo. It was very disparaging over a society that is driven by unison and equality, and to my jaded adult brain it feels a bit too much like anti-communism, perhaps appropriate given that the book was first published in the early 60s at the height of such tensions. I'm personally no supporter of communism, but at the same time I feel like because the book is aimed at children, it has to necessarily simplify communism into something digestible and therefore kinda paints any society where everyone is encouraged to blend together into a homogenous whole as somehow evil and unnatural. This simplification is dangerous imo and can become problematic when viewing other cultures in the world outside of America and maybe Europe.

I was also a little creeped out by this puppy love between 14 year old Calvin and I think 12 year old Meg. It's probably more normal back when it was first published, but then the expressions of this puppy love seems a bit over the top for this modern age: Calvin kept putting his arm around Meg's waist, telling her not to stop wearing her glasses because he didn't want anyone else to see her “dream-boat eyes”, and then ending everything off with a kiss.

The pacing also felt a bit disjointed in a lot of parts. For most of the first half of the book, I couldn't really quite figure out the outline of the story aside from the fact that we're on a mission to find Meg's missing father. Then even by the end, we still have no clarity on who or what the three W's were, or what Charles Wallace was either, considering he immediately claimed Calvin as “one of us” after first meeting him, and saying that Meg was neither here nor there. All these fantasy elements were mixed in really weirdly with some science fiction as well, with some really hard astrophysics being randomly repeated here and there. I just couldn't really get a grasp on things.

Nostalgia at it's finest

I remember loving this book as a kid. Revisiting the Murrys and Aunt Beast and Camazotz as an adult was a fun adventure. Having a different perspective, I can understand why I was so drawn to this story as a child. Madeleine L'Engle didn't dumb down or skip the science. She explained it in a way that if you understood, you understood, but if you don't, you still understand enough to continue the story. Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace are flawed, beautiful, realistic children you can relate to and I think that is such a wonderful quality. ♡