A review by james1star
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar

challenging tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I think I bought into the hype of this book and it really did not deliver. I barely read anything sci-fi/fantasy or the like and I feel you need to be a little be versed in this style to get on board with this one. The story basically follows two protagonist (Red and Blue) who are the top agents of their respective factions competing in a time war. They start sending each other messages, going from friends to sometime more. This romance and connection is by far the best part, it’s sweet and over the course of the novella I did get on board. However, this is heavily overshadowed by how confusing it is and made me feel, it’s really hard to know what is both actually going on and why. The way the messages are sent/received are truly mind boggling leaving me in a daze at times - this was also really repetitive as it follows the structure: mc gets message which is destroyed, someone comes along and consumes it, we (as readers) get to read the letter, goes to next mc and so on. I only really found some footing on page 118 but as the book came towards the end I was baffled again, it’s really frustrating and made me feel very stupid at multiple points too. I also think the way communication is somewhat explored is done okay, similarly the two characters are portrayed as female (what that actually are I haven’t a clue) so this inclusion of a sapphic love was good. Nevertheless, I think the world building and descriptions of place and message sharing takes away some of the page count that could’ve been used to explore the character’s personality and depth more to actually make me get invested in their plight. 

The writing is nice, it’s poetic at times and overall you know pleasant to read but the actual content doesn’t add up. I feel there’s potential and I could possibly gain more on a reread but I doubt I’d put myself though that again. I wouldn’t recommend it really at all by how annoying it was but I do know many many people absolutely love it so yh… maybe I just missed something? I really wished I had DNFd it. 


Two quotes that I did enjoy: 
‘Your letter, the sting, the beauty of it. Those forevers you promise. Neptune. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved.’ 
‘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. But never again like this.’
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