this is how you lose the time war by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

74th book of 2021

Reading period: Sept 05th 2021 – Sept 07th 2021

Summary

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.

Rating

Review

This book is a short but complex book to read, especially when sci-fi is out of your comfort zone.

The story follows two people who travel in time, and also it seems in dimensions. Their purpose is easy to understand, but the big picture is a lot more complicated to grasp. Most of the time, it isn’t easy to know in which period they are, but sometimes you have a name, so it’s a lot more easier (just need a little research on the internet to find the period.)

It took time to dive into the book as first you change era at each chapter, and then the letter sometimes puts you off the story, as they talk about a lot of things and most of the time not related to the chapter you just read. I was nearly afraid to stop reading as I didn’t know if I would quickly fall back into the story and as it’s a short story, it’s like wasting time a little.

The biggest issue I had was that I couldn’t place anything. I wanted to have more details about the world they live in as they are both from two different and rival worlds, how they connect, why they are playing with the timeline and especially why they are against each other. You have some answers in the book, but it’s too late and not enough for me. This problem is because I do not read a lot of Sci-Fi, which makes things hard to imagine.

I didn’t see the ending coming; I really liked it as it’s simultaneously so logical and so mind-blowing.

Liz.