Reviews with content warning for Grief - This Is How You Lose the Time War

This book wasn’t for me. The prose can be so purposefully opaque that it renders parts of the book barely understandable. And while I’m sure that some people enjoy that, personally I think that no matter how cerebral a book is, you should be able to imagine what the characters are doing when the author describes simple actions.

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rwsmith's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

i read this book after seeing a friend highly recommend it. i didnt realize how short it was. i listened to the audiobook - HIGHLY recommend - but this is one ill need to get a hard copy of for my shelf. the two readers of the audiobook were amazing and gave such interesting personalities to the main characters. im interested to see how differently ill perceive them when i read a physical copy.
the story is told almost entirely through letters that two time traveling agents write each other. they start as rivals, and slowly lower their guards and begin to fall for each other, trying to keep their relationship a secret.
i love the implications given when the story is told through their letters this way. the letters are at once straightforward and poetic. the writing of the whole novel is beautiful - tactile and soft and pointed and mysterious at the same time.
i'll definitely be reading this again. 5/5. its only a 4-hour audiobook, only a couple hundred pages. if you have an afternoon, there's no reason not to pick it up.

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augustar14's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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pacifickat's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

"I want to meet you in every place I have ever loved." -Blue

"What we've done will stand, no matter how they weave the world against us."
-Red

This book is well crafted, brutal, and poetic. It also, for the most part, is not what I would have considered my kind of book, and I struggled to read past the first confusing chapters. I was not expecting the literary density and convoluted phrasing of the letters between the two main characters. It felt like work to focus and hold on to the plot. Epistolary works often require a bit of patience. But boy am I glad I stuck with it! This story has a great payoff, even if it leaves a lot unexplained in the worldbuilding and open for the reader to interpret and imagine.

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tearoyale's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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meaghanelizabook's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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