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speculativebecky 's review for:
This Is How You Lose the Time War
by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
My dearest scatter of virtual conspirators,
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a delicious novella, more poetry than speculative fiction. It’s a romantic, swoon-worthy love letter to language and human* connection (*though the characters are not really human.)
I’ve been hotly anticipating this read for the better part of a year, worrying over the best moment to start reading, since most reviewers say they loved reading this book in one breathless sitting, but it took Matthew about a week to read as he savored the experience as long as possible. Thanks to the Bisexual Book Club for picking this as March’s buddy read, I finally just took the plunge.
The Time War started slower for me than I was anticipating, and what I found most challenging was the way the two dueling protagonists, Red and Blue, felt surprisingly undifferentiated to me. The narrative follows a distinct pattern twisting threads together, but I found myself distracted trying to remember whose thread I was reading at any given moment, whether in the narration or their letters. My patience was absolutely rewarded however as the characters began to come more sharply in focus over time, and then the story sucked me completely in and drowned me in not only beautiful writing, but a desperate need to see their stories to their conclusion.
I found the ending to be brilliant and rich, and I’ll leave off there to keep it unspoiled, but those of you who’ve read this one please feel free to gush into my DMs (or I guess if you don’t feel like gushing you can share your impressions whatever they may be.)
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a delicious novella, more poetry than speculative fiction. It’s a romantic, swoon-worthy love letter to language and human* connection (*though the characters are not really human.)
I’ve been hotly anticipating this read for the better part of a year, worrying over the best moment to start reading, since most reviewers say they loved reading this book in one breathless sitting, but it took Matthew about a week to read as he savored the experience as long as possible. Thanks to the Bisexual Book Club for picking this as March’s buddy read, I finally just took the plunge.
The Time War started slower for me than I was anticipating, and what I found most challenging was the way the two dueling protagonists, Red and Blue, felt surprisingly undifferentiated to me. The narrative follows a distinct pattern twisting threads together, but I found myself distracted trying to remember whose thread I was reading at any given moment, whether in the narration or their letters. My patience was absolutely rewarded however as the characters began to come more sharply in focus over time, and then the story sucked me completely in and drowned me in not only beautiful writing, but a desperate need to see their stories to their conclusion.
I found the ending to be brilliant and rich, and I’ll leave off there to keep it unspoiled, but those of you who’ve read this one please feel free to gush into my DMs (or I guess if you don’t feel like gushing you can share your impressions whatever they may be.)