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

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

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

153 reviews

chris_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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aryelee's review

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emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

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

4.0

What a book! This was such a gorgeous story about love shining through a never ending, all consuming war. It's the Romeo and Juliet narrative set in space and time among beings that are not human but are still painfully alive. It's choosing each other! It's reaching out, reaching back, going from taunts and an opportunity to enjoy a little fun in the dullness of the same war always fought over and over, and the slow change to wanting more, wanting each other, connecting with the enemy who is more similar to them than the leaders crying for blood and victory.

The only reason this isn't 5 stars is because this is more sci-fi than suits my tastes, which is expected because I am not a huge fan of sci-fi and pretty much never read this genre. Parts were a little confusing or slow enough to be dull so I struggled to get through. But that ending! That entire closing section of the story! Well worth pushing through slower parts to reach.

Honestly, this was a fast read despite how slow it felt at times and how I had to drag myself through a few chapters. Knowing the story fully now, I can see myself going back to reread it. Just, maybe not for a while.

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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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softgalaxy's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Wow. I’ve never read a book like this before. I heard good things beforehand, and I was pleased that I enjoyed it as much as I did.

The writing is decadent and poetic. I’m not going to lie and say that I completely understood the sci-fi elements, but it didn’t matter to be honest.

This book had me silently screaming. Sapphic enemies to lovers plus time-travel is just *chef’s kiss*.

I want to read this again and again. Highly recommend.

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emzhay's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense 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 have just been unmade and remade in the image of this book. Don’t text.

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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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coleanne's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

I really liked this book. It was a quick read and very lovely. I would give it 3.5 stars if allowed. You might wonder why I rounded down to three instead of up to four here if I liked it so much and thought it was lovely. I just found that there was something quite ‘nothing’ about it. While it is a lovely story and an enjoyable read, I don’t know that I would call it a good book. It certainly strings together, a beginning, middle, and end that is discernible and sensible. However, there’s just something empty about it where I wish there was more. I think it is limited by its context and its style and I don’t think this tracks entirely. Maybe the point is for it to feel empty in some kind of way because the war brings them to nothing, in the end, but each other. I just can’t bring myself to love it. Maybe I was poisoned by all the rave reviews I saw and I formed high expectations going in, leaving reality to inevitably fall short of fantasy. Regardless, I think it was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it to others, but I don’t think it is on par with other good books I’ve rated four and five stars.

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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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peggy_racham's review against another edition

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4.75

A war across time and space, love across the same. Two agents and lovers. I loved reading this book,falling in love with the characters, as they are falling on love with eachother. The descriptions of love as a hunger, as violent, profane but beautiful and full of life. And its lesbians.

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