A review by sapphicsolace
Time Was by Ian McDonald

3.0

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Rep: m/m romance

Content warnings: war

Arc sent to me by publisher in exchange for a free and honest review

This was is... complicated, that's one way to put it. 

Here's my main problem with the book, it somehow made this incredibly gay premise far less gay. If the premise is a perfect 10, then this was a 3 at best. If you've read The Great Gatsby you'd know one of the worst parts of it was that it was told from the pov of some random dude who didn't experience, he just observed. That was this book. And it was also really goddamn confusing. I can't say for sure if this was told in multiple perspectives because not even the book really makes that clear, because it's told in first person. I don't like the kind of books that makes perspectives so confusing it doesn't make sense until you're like half way through the book. 

And again, I can't even say for sure it was multiple perspectives, it not being that wouldn't make much sense though. So I was left in utter confusion for most of the book.

The writing I can say was strong. I did like it for the most part, and maybe I'll reread the book and it'll make more sense to me. The plot was just executed strangely, partially because of a misleading premise and partially because of how it's written. If you're a big fan of surrealism, I'd suggest picking it up if you're okay with outside perspective books.