Book Review: The Time Keeper


Title: The Time Keeper
Author: Mitch Albom
Rating: 


The inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.

He returns to our world--now dominated by the hour-counting he so innocently began--and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop the world to do so.

Told in Albom's signature spare, evocative prose, this remarkably original tale will inspire readers everywhere to reconsider their own notions of time, how they spend it and how precious it truly is.
The story follows the lives of 3 individuals: One from the past and two from the present. One thing that they have in common is time. One man had already lived through time. One man wants to have another lifetime and a girl wants to shorten her time.

Mitch Albom creates yet again another moving and enlightening story about one of the most vital things that everyone wants to have a control of - TIME. Throughout the book, the story will teach as a morale about time. Time is something precious. It's something we can't control. People have different views about time and how they spend it. For those who appreciate time, they spend every minute of it doing something fun or something they haven't tried. For those who think time is always running out, they spend time doing things they think are essential or important. They spent every minute of it worrying or working. They forget to eat or enjoy. They forget to appreciate the beauty of life. For those who think they've had enough time, they think of ways to end their life. They fail to appreciate the time given to them just because they were facing problems.

DOR. He was a person of the past who has lived suffering for thousands of years because of inventing time. Before the invention of clocks and watches or even pendulums, Dor already knew how to tell time by studying the shadows, the sun and even the moon. He soon found months that led to years which caused the future generations to be obsessed with time without appreciating life itself. He was given a chance to right his wrong when the old man gave him a mission to find two people on Earth. At first he had the vaguest idea of what he should so but sooner he found out why he was the one who was sent to change their perspective of their lives and time. Because he was the only one who has lived through time. He already learned his lesson.

VICTOR DELAMONTE. He was someone who thinks he has all the time in the world. He lives by working every minute of his life. Along the way, he forgot how to enjoy life. He forgot to slow down and appreciate the beauty of a new day. And when he was diagnosed with cancer, he wanted to do the impossible He wanted to have another lifetime. So he researched about immortality and found a new technology, the cryonics - the preservation of  humans for later reanimation.

SARAH LEMON. An intelligent teenage girl who fell for a boy named Ethan. When she got the nerves to tell him about how she really fells, she was busted. Then all of a sudden, she became a topic on facebook because Ethan announced to the world what she had done. She was so embarrassed and  she felt so alone that she planned to kill herself on New Year's Eve.

Just as they were on the process of prolonging and shortening their lives, Dor stopped the world. He showed them the future. The people they will leave. How different the future may be for Victor, so different from what he's planned. He showed Sarah how her actions will affect her mother. And when they returned to the real moment, they changed their decisions. Victor was rushed to the hospital. Sarah immediately came out of the car and was also rushed to the hospital. Victor lived for another 3 months. He changed his will and testament and included Sarah. Sarah became a doctor and discovered the antidote for the disease that killed Victor.

The book was good. It was different from other Albom's books. Though, I admit, it's not as captivating and gripping as his first books. What I love about Albom is how he writes powerful and enlightening stories that affects people emotionally and make them think. he doesn't only give a good story but also leaves a lesson for the readers. Good job Mitch!


Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. an alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.
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As children grow, they gravitate to their fates.
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Consider the word “time.” We use so many phrases with it. Pass time. Waste time. Kill time. Lose time. In good time. About time. Take your time. Save time. A long time. Right on time. Out of time. Mind the time. Be on time. Spare time. Keep time. Stall for time. There are as many expressions with “time” as there are minutes in a day. But once, there was no word for it at all. Because no one was counting. Then Dor began. And everything changed.
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Before you measure the years, you measure the days.
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Soon man will count all his days, and then smaller segments of the day, and then smaller still—until the counting consumes him, and the wonder of the world he has been given is lost.
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As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart. People fretted over missed chances, over inefficient days; they worried constantly about how long they would live, because counting life’s moments had led, inevitably, to counting them down. Soon, in every nation and in every language, time became the most precious commodity.
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Mankind is connected in ways it does not understand - even in dreams.
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It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.
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Only God can write the end of your story.
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Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.
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A man who can take anything will find most things unsatisfying. And a man without memories is just a shell. 
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We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.
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Knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing.
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 Common sense has no place in first love an never has.
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 When we are most alone is when we embrace another's loneliness.
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Dor: Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be an answer to your prayer. To most important part of the future.
 Sarah: What's that?
Dor: Hope. 
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With endless time, nothing is special, With no loss or sacrifice, we can't appreciate what we have.
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Dor: There is a reason God limits our days.
Victor: Why?
Dor: To make each one precious. 
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There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between summers was gone.
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Everything man does today to be efficient, to fill the hour? It does not satisfy. It only makes him hungry to do more. Man wants to own his existence. But no one owns time. When you are measuring life, you are not living it.
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Fates are connected in ways we don't understand.
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We do not realize the sound the world creates - unless, of course, it comes to a stop. Then, when it starts, it sounds like an orchestra.

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