This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Adult, Science Fiction

"The only future they have is one apart and together. they lived for so log without knowing one another, warring through time. They were separate, they did not speak, but each shaped the other, even as they were shaped in turn."

Non-Spoiler Review

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.

When people say this book is weird, they mean it. I have never read a book, much less a novella, that elicited such conflicting feelings. On one hand, I got a headache from reading the first 100 pages of this 200-page novella. But on the other hand, I loved how the story came together in the end. The real struggle is talking about this without giving away spoilers.

Firstly, the characters: Red and Blue. Red is a machine while Blue is human who can shapeshift. I think. (Their descriptions were not all that helpful.) Each is from opposing sides to this never-ending war through time. Their romance was a sapphic star-crossed lovers story spanning millennia. In the end, I wasn't entirely invested primarily because it all unfolded in the letters they secretly sent to one another in creative (and confusing) manners. I'm personally not a fan of this kind of technique when it comes to romances. And their relationship can be likened to Romeo and Juliet (I know the quintessential star-crossed lovers), especially in the end with how things unfolded, however, there was that sci-fi twist to the original play. Romance aside, I will say that Red and Blue are some badass ladies who are forces to be reckoned with. I enjoyed their introspective moments, particularly with what they shared with each other in their letters. Those quiet, vulnerable moments was what I liked about their characters and I wish we got to see more of that. 

"Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was a wound in a vein. She stained the page with herself." 

This story was a weird and oddly interesting blend of time travel, multiverses and histories to create a spanning story through the threads of time. But condensed into one tight package. (I'm not about to explain the world-building because I don't even fully understand it myself.) If this had been a fully fleshed out novel, I feel as though the beginning wouldn't be as jarring as it was and could potentially be way less confusing. Frankly, the beginning made me want to DNF this straight away because I was not absorbing ANYTHING. That said, I did love how the story came together in the end as it used one of my favourite storytelling methods in that a series of events, in the beginning, made sense by the end. I love it when the threads come together at the end, and we witness how irrevocably they changed each others' lives. Frankly, this book probably needs a reread for me to grasp the story fully, but I'll give my poor brain a break. 

"Adventure works in any strand — it calls to those who care more for living then for their lives."

The story itself felt like an extended metaphor in many ways. The writing was undeniably beautiful, albeit too literary for me to understand a couple of words here and there. (I feel as though I will get more out of it by listening to the audiobook in the future if I do decide to give this a reread). If you think The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern or Middlegame by Seanan McGuire is confusing, this short novella far surpasses them. This story oddly reminds me of those two books as it combines some aspects of their plots and story structure together (with the use of media within the story and how the whole time travelling, bending space and time concludes the story) and binds them with beautiful writing. Ultimately, I feel as though the story would have lent itself more readable if it would have been made into a novella to gentle immerse the audience into the world instead of dropping them in the deep end. 

"Words can wound — they're bridges too." 

Overall, I'm still confused as to what I'll rate it but I think a 3-stars can sum up my general feelings towards the story. In terms of a breakdown: first 100 pages = 2 stars, next 50 pages = 3 stars and last 50 pages = 4-4.5 stars. The ending was the redeeming quality of this whole novella mostly because it helped me understand what on Earth was happening. I wished that I could give it a higher rating but the beginning kind of killed my brain with all of the info-dump. I would still like to check out more books by this author duo given that I did enjoy their writing, although I would greatly appreciate a full-length novel if they're writing something this complex in the future.