A catch up book for one of my September prompts.
This Is How You Lose The Time War
Amal El-Mohtar | Max Gladstone
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.
Bookshop.org | Goodreads | The StoryGraph | Amazon
This first came on my radar when it went a little viral over on Twitter and to be honest it did sound like my kind of book so I added it to the wish list. Then on one of many bookshop visits in the summer, I came across it and decided to pick it up.
I won’t lie it took me a minute to get to grips with it, I felt like there was just something slightly out of my reach in my understanding of the moving through time and the letters between Blue and Red, but I stuck with it and it really paid off.
Even in the moments where I wasn’t entirely sure who, what, or where in time we were I was enjoying getting caught up in the rivalry, then watching it bloom into something else entirely. I loved that they found the time for each other, though they are on different sides and often in different times I could feel that deep connection.
The book is so well written and seems seamless considering it has two authors, the language of the book is exquisite although it does make it very dense. For a short book, it requires a lot of concentration and I found that reading it in smaller sections made it more manageable.
Even if I could describe a sense of the plot there is no way I could do it justice or make it sound coherent but when I got to the end of the book I was overwhelmed by the brilliance of it. This is a story that I know I can read again and probably get even more enjoyment from it, it’s just so clever.
This is How You Lose the Time War is a unique love story and an unexpected gem.
everywhere-and-nowhere.com 