Reviews tagging 'Grief'

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar

129 reviews

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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patti_cake08's review

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adventurous emotional reflective tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

Christ this book was magnificent. The narration was brilliant, lyricsl but smooth and yarring. The use if letters for the secind half of each chapter held the reader's and the characters understanding of each other. Not to mention their evolution in how they feel for each other. You are with them as they read these letters through ash and blood and tree. You see them fall in love with each other's fatality and person. 
It was brilliant and had me nearly in tears.
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kananineko's review

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adventurous challenging 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

I loved this!!! I really loved the format and the characters and their relationship!! World-ending love for the win! And the writing was beautiful. But I took off one star because for a lot of the book I literally had no idea what was going on and it took longer to read than I normally would take on a 200 page book. But in the end it didn't really matter bc the characters and their relationship <3<3<3

lowkey thought this was gonna be one of my favorite books ever tho and it sadly didn't make that bc of how confusing it was... still loved it a lot tho and the writers are very talented!! I know that makes it sound like a 3 star but the characters' relationship dynamic was so amazing that it adds a star

*spoiler* I do wish we got a little more with the ending tho, like maybe one more chapter where we could see them together
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rickireadss's review against another edition

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4.0

this was a mind trip for sure. in some ways, i feel like i actually kinda understood what was happening, but in other ways, i feel like i was much too stupid for this book haha. i enjoyed listening to this on audio. the gasp i gusped at that ending-- WTF. overall, i had a good time, but i'm still not sure i understood 100% of what happened/was happening/where that ending took us.

representation: Sapphic FMCs

content warnings:
death, violence, war, blood, murder, body horror, gore, injury/injury detail, grief, torture, suicide attempt, genocide, self harm, confinement, stalking, abandonment
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fragrant_stars's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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 started it today and I couldn't put it down!! I finished it this evening.

This book was more challenging than I expected because of how poetic the writing style was-- but I really enjoyed it nonetheless, especially the second half of the book. It's a masterpiece, one that I feel like I'm definitely going to want to re-read again sometime.
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bri__'s review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

A lyrical, thrilling and enchanting tale of two lovers destined to be apart. This was wildly different to what I expected, but I enjoyed it. While there was some tricky vocab that made the context hard to grasp and exhausted my poor brain, the love letters between blue and red were stunning depictions of love as it transcends through history (literally). Normally this isn't something I would have read, but I feel like it opened my eyes and honestly, I feel like I've changed after reading this book. The layout of the chapters and the shortness of the book itself (200 pages) let me finish this book in one sitting. Overall, a beautiful but confusing story at times, with an ending that made it worth it.
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oliii_24's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense fast-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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lizziaha's review against another edition

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5.0

This is one of those books that reminds me that language is an altar that I choose to worship at. While Red and Blue talk about hunger, all I could think about is how much I hungered for these words. My thoughts are too scattered right now to form a coherent review on the topic of the beautiful language in this book, but I will say that the vibe of two down bad lesbians pining for each other across space and time will always work for me. (Blue really said “im down bad” and Red said “im down WORSE” and vice versa). I personally will never recover from the quote: “I’ll be all the poets, I’ll kill them all and take each one’s place in turn, and every time love’s written in all the strands it will be to you.” Like????
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