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A review by bookish_bailee
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
5.0
An easy five stars. This book broke me and put me back together.
"I love you. I love you. I love you. I’ll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You’ll never see, but you will know. 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."
This is such a mastery of craft and a story in a league of its own. Despite being absolutely enormous in scope and told only through small windows of time and place, it is immediately immersive. The writing is lyrical and beautiful without sacrificing pace or plot, and the unfolding of Red and Blue’s love for one another is so painfully human, though they themselves are not. I never wanted it to end, and will undoubtedly be carrying this story with me for a very long time.
"I love you. I love you. I love you. I’ll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You’ll never see, but you will know. 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."
This is such a mastery of craft and a story in a league of its own. Despite being absolutely enormous in scope and told only through small windows of time and place, it is immediately immersive. The writing is lyrical and beautiful without sacrificing pace or plot, and the unfolding of Red and Blue’s love for one another is so painfully human, though they themselves are not. I never wanted it to end, and will undoubtedly be carrying this story with me for a very long time.