A Review of This Is How You Lose the Time War

Story Reviews #4

Stories Reviewed Today:

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

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Dear reader,

I’m going for a love story today! This one being considered a sci-fi novella with romantic elements. (But really, the book is a love story told across time and space.)

Also, what is the difference between a novel and a novella, you may be asking?

In short, novels are typically understood to be somewhere over 40,000 words while novellas are usually somewhere between 10,000 to 40,000 words. (Though this number can vary depending on which sources I’ve seen, with this being the range I’ve seen most often upon a quick search.) But you can generally think of a novella as longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. A baby novel, if you will.

I.

Review of This is How You Lose the Time War

Wow. Just… wow.

It’s rare that I give a book a 1 or a 5 star review, so the fact that this is a 5 star is impressive in my book.

The fact that a book involving time travel, something I generally very much dislike, also clawed its way to 5 is doubly impressive.

I expected to enjoy this book, given that the premise struck me as poetically similar to Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship in Good Omens, which I am an absolute sucker for, as evidenced in this post here. I just didn’t expect this story to carve a place for itself in my chest cavity and lodge itself beside my heart, but okay, sure! Go right ahead!

(It lives here now.)

I’ve historically not liked poetic types of prose like this, but my goodness, this prose is gorgeous and raw and stirring and kind of frighteningly gross at times. But also beautifully, weirdly so.

This feels like a book that you can only have strong feelings about; either you’d love it or you’d hate it. (Those types of stories typically mean I hate them, so I’m shocked I don’t hate this book!)

The entire book shifts between our time-travelling agents, Red and Blue, as they embark on new missions and leave letters for one another. Chapters are a quick few pages of accomplishing their missions with superhuman (they aren’t human, mind you) efficiency, followed by the opposite agent’s letter.

The letters kept me on the edge of my seat.

Literally, I was basically crouching on the edge of the couch over this book the entire night I read it. I started it at like 9 PM and finished just before midnight. I did not stop and could not stop until it was done.

The missions were, of course, fascinating as well, but I wanted to read those letters almost as desperately as the two main characters did.

This is one of those books I checked out from the library and immediately knew I wanted to buy it because those lines will forever live in me. Because the story has wedged itself into my ribs and into the list of my top favorite books of all time.

Just *snap* and there’s a book you never realized would fall into that place, almost like a person you meet before knowing how much they’ll mean to you. It’s books like these that remind me of that special feeling I get with certain stories, like you’ve just met a new, very dear friend.

II.

Rating for This is How You Lose the Time War

I’ve already said this, but this book is, hands down, a 5 out of 5 stars for me.

It’s a fairly short read (the copy I read clocks in at barely under 200 pages with quite spacious print) and a great page-turner, full of romance and clever history jokes and lush worlds in both lyrical and succinct prose.

It’s truly a stunning read that I would absolutely recommend.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you have a day as wonderful as you are!

Happy reading!

-Olivia :)