This Is How You Lose the Time War | 
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“Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was wound in a vein. She stained the page with herself. She sometimes forgets what she wrote, save that it was true, and the writing hurt.“
“Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was wound in a vein. She stained the page with herself. She sometimes forgets what she wrote, save that it was true, and the writing hurt.“
I can appreciate why people have raved about it but it just didn‘t evoke much of anything but frustration for me. I think I also disagree with the characterization as “sapphic”. The characters are called “she” but with all the body swapping and pod creation, the many lived experiences…gender just doesn‘t really seem to play any great role in the story for me. Some truly beautiful language in places, but overall just ‘eh‘ for me.
When Red wins, she stands alone.
#FirstLineFriday
@ShyBookOwl
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Slightly rounding up.
After a few pages, I made a note in the margin that said, "I don't like this so far." It was weird. So weird. And then, somewhere along the way, it became beautiful and brilliant and human. It had so many layers.
This book kind of reminds me of looking through a kaleidoscope - with every spin, the pieces are reorganized into a new design. And as the light pours through, their brilliance is brought to life.
Cracking up the first book offered by the only person daring to gift me books on my birthday ;)
I *just* finished reading about an epic battle between Red & Blue, and then immediately went into work to begin this task.
I‘m literally painting a red mailbox blue. This is unintentionally HILARIOUS. I‘m dy(e)ing. 😅
pickThis book‘s origin story is beyond cool.
It‘s about two warring factions, traveling through time and manipulating events (often in small ways but sometimes hugely & violently) to ensure that their side wins. The two protagonists are agents for each side: Red & Blue. They begin leaving one another letters, taunting at first, and they fall in love.
The book is co-written, one author responsible for each perspective/alternating chapter. 👇🏻
First book of 2024!
A sapphic adventure starring two time traveling agents, opposite in motivation. A compelling SF journey. I feel something every time I open it up!
pickI picked this up for my local indie‘s January virtual book club/reading challenge. I went into it blind, and it‘s not at all what I expected based on the title. It‘s kind of an enemies to lovers romance with warring factions racing up and down various timelines. The audio was a little tough to follow despite separate narrators for the two POVs, but still well done.
panI hated this book. Too abstract and full of prose. I could barely follow it and skimmed lots of it. It came highly recommended but I only read it to be done with it.
pickFirst book of 2024! Gorgeously written - I sped through because I was so invested, but I already want to savor a reread. Love a time travel love story! #scifi
The results are in!! Honestly hard to decide between Sign Here and the Time War. They‘re so different, but what I loved about both of them is that they really blended genres in a way that felt fresh and compelling. In the end, Time War is the pick because it just filled me with so much love.
Happy almost New Year!! #ReadingBracket2023 #2023ReadingBracket
An easy pick for April, my one 5 star read. Though honorable mention to Dear Prudence by Daniel Lavery.
pickThis was one of the best sci-fi books that I‘ve read. It‘s unique and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.
so-soEvery time travel story needs a time loop, and This Is How You Lose the Time War has a clever one. The world, however, remains terribly abstract. Even the co-protagonists, Red and Blue, are more concepts than people. I found this simultaneously fascinating and unsatisfying. It would actually make an excellent comic if the lyrical prose was accompanied by illustrations.
This is a really interesting use of the epistolary form, as the novel is mainly comprised of letters between Red and Blue. The language is gorgeous, meditative, agonized, and potent, but it throws me off slightly that Red and Blue, who are agents of diametrically opposed and incompatible possible futures, sound so much alike. Their voices should more fully reflect how vastly different their societies are.
Like a sci-fi version of Killing Eve
pickMy heart!!!!
Pick is not a strong enough word!!! The sheer poetry, the originality, the absolute indescribable perfection.
These two authors put pure love on the page with unabashed surrender.
As someone never prone to hyperbole (jokes!), I think this is the best book I‘ve ever read.
I‘m struggling with this book so I thought I‘d hit the porch at CoffeeSmith and see if some treats and a beautiful morning could help me enjoy this book.
#MidYearBookFreakOut I love this hashtag!
1. This is How You Lose the Time War. For book published in 2023, We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian,
2. ok, this is embarrassing but... The Heir Apparent's Rejected Mate by Cate C. Wells. 😊
3. Happy Place by Emily Henry. I started it on audio but even though I usually love that narrator, didn't get into it.
4. Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Loved the Ex Talk and Weather girl.
cont.
pickContinuing with my theme of reading only LGBTQ+ books this month, I finished this one and its heartbreaking. I loved the gradual build of Red and Blue‘s relationship as much as I loved the ease of the sci-fi and the beauty of the writing.
#lgbtq+ #lgbtqia2s+ #wlw #june #pride #pridemonth
pickBlue. Red. Two opposing operatives. A war across time itself. Is anything more important than winning?
I adored everything about this. The writing was lyrical and poetic. This was the first time I felt the enemies to lovers trope actually worked for me. An unexpected ending. The evolution of the salutations!
This whole thing felt like a dream. I desperately want to listen to the audiobook now. & I have to look up more of El-Mohtar. 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
I did all the adult things that needed to be done yesterday and it‘s currently raining. I‘m going to curl up with a stack of books and not do ANYTHING today. 💙
panNice prose but lacking on story. It seemed like such an interesting world the author created, too bad they didn‘t really explain any of it to us.
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️This book was unlike anything I‘ve ever read & probably anything I‘ll ever read again. Gorgeous & weird. I don‘t know how to talk about it, but all I want to do is talk about it.
The fact that it was co-written by two authors is striking because it feels so distinct. And the fact that it‘s a novella is ridiculous because it feels so full.
It‘s not an easy read, but if you‘re up for it, I highly, highly recommend.
Wow.
Wow.
There are enemies-to-lovers romances and then there is... this.
Wow.
pickI admit the beginning was confusing, but once I got a bit further in, I was hooked! My favorite parts are the letters from Red to Blue and vice versa - the enemies to lovers trope in a whole different and unique way. I strive to have someone write to me the way they write to each other (swoon). My only small complaint - I would‘ve liked a little more backstory on how the war started, more origin story. The beautiful writing is just 🔥
Is this a perfect match or is this a perfect match? Currently reading and enjoying this one, should finish today! #pantone2023 #ALSpine @Sapphire @monalyisha @Clwojick
pickTwo agents fighting a war through time and space begin exchanging letters and fall in love. 4⭐️
pickFinished up this epistolary novella about time-traveling female spies/assassins on different sides who fall in love during a war. I saw it on someone‘s best of 2023 on TikTok & was intrigued & my library had the e-book available last week. Beautiful writing & imagery & apparently much smarter than me as I am not sure I understood everything that happened in their somewhat cat-and-mouse relationship 🤷🏻♀️ but the evocative writing engaged me.
"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."
(If you're interested in sapphic, spy enemies to lovers, epistolary romance, with a dash of time travel, this is the book for you.)
pickBeautifully lyrical, romantic and intricate. This epistolary love story, tells of two female time-traveling spies, communicating through letters as the ongoing war ravages their opposing sides. As I often do with this genre( very outside my comfort-zone) I find the world-building sci-fi bits more distracting than anything else. But the human connection shines here. The writing is really gorgeous, and in such a brief novella, so much is said.
panI hated the writing for this. It was purple prose to the extreme and unnecessarily confusing. It was hard to be enthusiastic about this book when from page one I was rolling my eyes
pickI don‘t have enough words to actually describe what I‘m feeling right now after finishing this book. It was that bloody brilliant. I am literally at a loss of words. My face may look unaffected but there is a war raging inside of me. This book, the author, I‘m in love. This book is a gem. I recommend it to EVERYONE!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Love is what we have, against time and death, against all the powers ranged to crush us down.
Tell me something true, or tell me nothing at all.
I love you and I love you and I love you, on battlefields, in shadows, in fading ink, on cold ice splashed with the blood of seals. In the rings of trees. In the wreckage of a planet crumbling to space. In bubbling water. In bee stings and dragonfly wings, in stars. In the deapths of lonely woods where I wandered in my youth, staring up - and even then you watched me. You slid back through my life, and I have known you since before I knew you.
But when I think of you, I want to be alone together. I want to strive against and for. I want to live in contact. I want to be a context for you, and you for me.
I love you, and I love you, and I want to find out what that means together.
I want to meet you in every place I have loved.
Flowers grow far away on a planet they‘ll call Cephalus, and these flowers bloom once a century, when the living star and its black-hole binary enter conjunction.I want to fix you a bouquet of them, gathered across eight hundred thousand years, so you can draw our whole engagement in a single breath, all the ages we‘ve shaped together.
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. I want to drink tea beside you in ten years or a thousand.
