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A review by wdallas126
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? N/A
2.5
This is a strange story and is thus strange to review. My expectations were not accurately aligned with the execution of the book, to be sure. I was expecting it to be much more epistolary, but the letters were a few pages at the end of each chapter only. In fact, they were the only part I consistently liked.
The authors really tried to make the story more complicated than it needed to be -- creating a very confusing and little-explained sci-fi world for this story to take place in. I would have rather seen notable scenes in history that these characters were adjusting the outcomes of. Due to this level of complexity, things like plot-twists or major reveals/turns just didn't make much sense. It really took the stakes away when I wasn't understanding a lot of how things work in this world.
The writing style was contrived and difficult, relying very heavily on metaphor. Sure, there were some great sapphic lines, but I wasn't invested in the actual relationships or characters. It is also painfully repetitive. Truthfully, if it had been any longer I probably would've DNFed.
The authors really tried to make the story more complicated than it needed to be -- creating a very confusing and little-explained sci-fi world for this story to take place in. I would have rather seen notable scenes in history that these characters were adjusting the outcomes of. Due to this level of complexity, things like plot-twists or major reveals/turns just didn't make much sense. It really took the stakes away when I wasn't understanding a lot of how things work in this world.
The writing style was contrived and difficult, relying very heavily on metaphor. Sure, there were some great sapphic lines, but I wasn't invested in the actual relationships or characters. It is also painfully repetitive. Truthfully, if it had been any longer I probably would've DNFed.