This is How You Lose the Time War: The epic time-travelling love story and Twitter sensation Paperback – 18 July 2019

I’ve always been a little wary of co-written works, because I’m skeptical about the cohesiveness of the writing. However, this slim and totally absorbing novel cast those apprehensions away. Much has been mentioned about the co-authors’ writing process, which I will not belabour here, but the epistolary structure of this novel lends itself well to it.This is essentially a love story, but with a key difference, in that the two protagonists do not even exist in the same spatiotemporal dimension.Blue and Red, as they are rather functionally named, are operatives from opposing camps in a multi-dimensional battle that spans millennia and realms, which is little hard for me to grapple with at first.Blue is from “Garden,” which suggests nature, growth and life itself, while Red is from “Shift,” whose business appears to be to tamper with or engineer the “natural” course of history. We are told that Garden thinks “Shift relies too much on tricking time, evading it, skimming across its stones, dipping its distasteful toes, thinking to divert its currents by rippling its surface.”Red, an agent of Shift, carries out these diversions by being an assassin of sorts, picking out those individuals whom the Agency determines should not be there, in order to redirect or “braid” the strands of time together.She traverses these dimensions, moving “upthread” or “downthread” in her missions. Red reports to a Commandant, and though all the characters take on female pronouns, they do not always assume (human) physical forms.They are bonded by the letters they send each other, which are embedded in a seed, in a fallen star, etc. But the fact that Red and Blue are time travellers also mean things don’t always have to be linear, so when one is forced to betray the other, this quality gives the whole story enough twists to keep the reader captivated.This is an unusually entertaining sf novel that is intelligent yet does not set out to obfuscate with its cleverness. The writing is top notch, and the inventive vocabulary is so aptly used to convey refreshing insights. I only wish there was more of it to read, when i reached the end of it.

It takes a while to understand the ins and outs of it, and certain pennies do not drop till almost the end.I'll definitely reread this with the hindsight of knowing it already, to see if I can find out more, but even on the first read, what a curious meandering lovely read of a love story, with interesting historical or science related nuggets or ideas hidden throughout.The pace in which the heroines are falling in love with each, may seem a bit breakneck to a reader, but for them it's years if not millenia of the time jumping and the back and forth. And it does not leave any doubts, they are in fact doing just that, despite all the distrust and warring between their factions.Loved it on the first read, my brain will need to digest it some more for sure though.

I first read this book for class (I'm doing a film and creative writing degree) and I have decided to write my final essay for the module on it. I have never actively looked forward to writing an essay before in my life, but with this book, it's hard not to. The writers have done god's work here and I owe them my life. This has done wonders for my lil gay heart... It's a short read, quite lexically dense, but it is so so worth reading it! If you are trying to decide whether to get this book or not, I promise you won't regret it

“You’ve always been the hunger at the heart of me, Red—my teeth, my claws, my poisoned apple.”My brain hurts. I've read sci-fi before but this made me question my intelligence.I'm struggling to process this book never mind try and write a coherent review.First of all this is a story of how Blue and Red are rivals of different sides from different multiverses?? The best I can explain it is that Red represents technology and Blue the earth. Or at least that's the world's in which they respectively come from, were grown as weapons etc. They are worthy opponents and thus their story grows through the letters in which they send over many timelines. It's hard to say how many years that their story unfolds over but I would guess it's over a couple of centuries. With each letter and each life time these two rival assassin time travellers fall in love. Amidst lots of casual murder and a time war.Now why is this time war happening? Who knows! Do I grasp the concept of power and how it can apply here to events that unfold and how each timeline impacts the world therefore giving that power to the "winners"? Absolutely. But the authors don't really give depth to that here.This book is written mostly in letters which I had no issue with actually. It is also a love story that unfolds slowly. Then there's the non existent world building; you get details here and there to try put it together but overall I'm still very confused. I don't often seek out books that I feel will hit me emotionally, that will pack a punch. However, I wanted that with this book but I didn't get that. This book is written in a way which is to be understood as attempting to be beautiful and philosophical and to pull certain emotions out of the reader. However the prose were too much so much so that they read as pretentious to me. It offered lots of imagery and potential for swooning but when I.actually stood back and tried to understand the flowery writing it would be nonsensical. I was so busy trying to understand what was happening, what was being said, trying to decipher meaning from it that I couldn't actually feel the connection with the book and with Blue and Red and their love story. And that was the issue for me besides it being overwhelming to read was that there was too much reliance on the flowery writing itself, to get so trapped up in the confusion that it sounded pretty but what was actually happening?? How were they falling in love? How does this world work from timeline to timeline? Don't get me wrong, the yearning and the pining between these two women was so good but beyond that? I was just confused. I was hoping by the end it would all click for me. That I'd have understanding and clarity on what the story was. That I'd feel this book in my chest. And while some things slowly came to light, for the most part I was confused. Still am.Perhaps that's the point. Maybe the over poetic writing is for a very particular group of readers and I'll just be over here being dumb for not getting it. Also I think your perception on the world and on love and time could dictate how you connect with this story.But I have to be completely honest at times I wondered if the authors themselves even fully understand the world in which they created and maybe it's more about the characters and this supposedly other worldly love. I also went into this expecting more antagonism but didn't get that.I have no qualms about quitting on a book. Clearly even though this book was stressing me out and even now my brain feels like it has melted for trying to understand how this world works, I enjoyed the concept and finished the book. I wanted to actually feel this love story and while that didn't happen and I still don't know what I read really, it certainly was an intriguing read and it's probably gonna make me have weird dreams now.*Read e-book & Audio

This book is poetry. Every sentence is so well thought, forming one of those most beautiful and intelligent stories I've ever read.Everyone should read this book.