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“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Currently Reading 📚: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Rate: 5/5

Genre: Romance, Science Fiction, Mystery

This is How You Lose the Time War is a story about timeless love: the perseverance, the beauty, and the folly of the spark that transcends space, time, and death.

“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.”

Overview

There’s something so painstakingly beautiful about the love that blooms between our two protagonists. As entire worlds deteriorate and turn into dust, their love perseveres and moves on to the next, with no evidence except a handful of letters written on the fabric of the universe. Love fades and fluctuates, centuries pass between letters, but it never dies. Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, writing one of two characters, masterfully create a romance that is both timeless and fragile.

“I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. Listen to me. I am your echo. I would rather break the world than lose you.”

Plot

Red and Blue, enemies born and tasked to fight each other for eternity, are agents of two societies that fight over control and the ultimate fate of the multiverse. Spawning on a private battlefield riddled with smoke and blood, a series of letters that begin with mere curiosity bleeds into an illicit romance that if found out, would mean the eradication of both lovers. Each chapter is a different world and time, ending with a letter written by means of leaves, blood, flower petals, and everything tangible. On paper, it is a tad bit repetitive, but the subtle bits of mystery and intensity are just captivating enough to satisfy the ending.

“I love you. I love you. 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.”

Prose

The prose of This is How You Lose the Time War is absolutely phenomenal; it switches between simple and flowery, direct and metaphoric, and showcases the masterclass in writing of these two authors. Every word is intentional, and every sentence seems to head towards the devastating end of this affair. While reading, you feel swept by the passion and dread seeping from the very pages.

I was personally floored by the sheer intelligence and complexity of the writing. However, I can see others being underwhelmed by the overdone prose; sometimes, it feels like it is trying too hard for the sake of pure aesthetics. It definitely depends on your taste and how you enjoy books.

“I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. Listen to me. I am your echo. I would rather break the world than lose you.”

Thoughts

Overall, this book was a beautifully written story that shot upward on my ranking of favorite books. Despite being only 200 pages, it was able to find the perfect ending that left right for its world and illustrated love in such a extraordinary and original way. 5/5.

“I want to be a body for you. I want to chase you, find you, I want to be eluded and teased and adored; I want to be defeated and victorious—I want you to cut me, sharpen me.