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A review by alexampersand
This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
5.0
Realistically, this book flits between a 3 star and 5 star for me. So I guess I should probably give it 4, except that the good parts were REALLY, REALLY good, so I guess I can overlook the mediocre 3 star parts.
It took me a little while to get into - I'm not the biggest sci-fi fan, and at first I felt a little too thrust into a futuristic dystopian world without much of an explanation about who these people are, why they're fighting, what exactly they're doing, what their world even looks like. And... that actually doesn't really change too much. There's not really too much world-building that goes on, not a lot of explicit explanations about these characters.
BUT. The letter sections are really beautifully written. I loved how they explored concepts of humanity, of feelings, of love, of hunger, and they were written in a really nicely poetic, existential way. And about 50 pages in, I started to quite enjoy reading the letters.
The last third of the book broke my heart, and it's the first time in a long time that I've actually felt myself emotionally moved by a book. The ending felt maybe sliiiiiightly convoluted, but still fairly satisfactory.
So - had the letters not existed, the 'narrative' sections of the book were probably 3 star for me. But the letters, and the plot itself, are 5 star, and I think touched me enough that to warrant a 5 star for the book overall.
(Part of me can't help but feel that I'd enjoy it EVEN MORE if there were slightly more world-building at the outset and I could feel a little more like I understood the wider context of the story, but hey.)
It took me a little while to get into - I'm not the biggest sci-fi fan, and at first I felt a little too thrust into a futuristic dystopian world without much of an explanation about who these people are, why they're fighting, what exactly they're doing, what their world even looks like. And... that actually doesn't really change too much. There's not really too much world-building that goes on, not a lot of explicit explanations about these characters.
BUT. The letter sections are really beautifully written. I loved how they explored concepts of humanity, of feelings, of love, of hunger, and they were written in a really nicely poetic, existential way. And about 50 pages in, I started to quite enjoy reading the letters.
The last third of the book broke my heart, and it's the first time in a long time that I've actually felt myself emotionally moved by a book. The ending felt maybe sliiiiiightly convoluted, but still fairly satisfactory.
So - had the letters not existed, the 'narrative' sections of the book were probably 3 star for me. But the letters, and the plot itself, are 5 star, and I think touched me enough that to warrant a 5 star for the book overall.
(Part of me can't help but feel that I'd enjoy it EVEN MORE if there were slightly more world-building at the outset and I could feel a little more like I understood the wider context of the story, but hey.)