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Every 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

My 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.

Just finished this one. For me, it was only a soft pick. I think the reason I didn‘t enjoy it more is because it was so abbreviated. I‘d have preferred more detail, but I suppose the plot was pared down to the most important details, which was okay, I guess. Again, not my preference. My first book down for #rushathon ! ⭐️⭐️⭐️

#currentlyreading #rushathon #readathon ✨

Enjoyed it.

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.

Continuing 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

Blue. 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. 💙

Time to see what all the chatter is about

Nice 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.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️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.

I 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

Two agents fighting a war through time and space begin exchanging letters and fall in love. 4⭐️

Finished 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.

November was by and far my slowest month of the year. I was in a major reading slump.

#roundup #bookreport #nov2022 #2022 #audio #manga #romance #scifi #memoir #queer #libby #librarybooks #library

"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.)

Beautifully 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.

This #audiobook is delightful. And it's epistolary. ❤

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

I 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

I 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.

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.

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

Some days blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.

I was not expecting to feel the things I felt during this holy rollercoaster ride of a book. I don‘t normally like books written primarily in letter format, but damn. I laughed, I cried and I very nearly threw my iPad in outrage. This book is worth every word I read, and is easily in the top like 10 of the books I‘ve read thus far this year. Well done.

A new favorite book. Love the epistolary romance, the enemy spies to lovers and the time travel 😍😍

Oh, romance 😍😍😍

I guess I forgot to review this a few weeks ago. It's highly poetic, and was an interesting way to tell a story. I enjoyed imagining all of the ways these women "wrote" to one another, and loved seeing their relationship development. I had a brief worry that this might have a reveal where it's two women in a creative writing class writing emails back and forth or something. #LGBTQ
It was hard for me to follow along as I listened.

Trying to enjoy the fresh air before I'm chased away by the rain.☺

2nd Read on Audible. Beautiful narration. Liked that one of Organizations is known as Garden. And all the gardening refrences.
"We‘re grown, I think you know—seeds planted, roots combing through time, until Garden repots us in different soil.....Garden goes to seed, blows us away, and we burrow into the braidedness of time and mesh with it. There is no scouring hedge to pass through; we are the hedge, entirely, rosebuds with thorns for petals."

2X Reading. This time audiobook.

I'll be honest half the time I had no clue what I was reading. But it was really good! Time Traveling Spies who fall in love by letters sent across the Universe?

Definitely going to need a 2nd read to understand. I'm thinking audiobook next time.

There's no doubt 'This Is How You Lose the Time War' was my favorite read of the month.

Thanks to @chasjjlee for the template. #ReadingBracket2022
#favorite #reading #march #books #myfavorite

Thanks for the tag! @EadieB 😊 @eggs

1. Wordle
That game is addictive! 😂
2. To be surrounded by nature and hug some trees. They fill you up with their energy. They are wise! 😉 💞🌲
3. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone BEAUTIFUL book.

A lyrical futuristic romance, like Romeo and Juliet if the parents were different societies. The writing and plot movement is complex to the point of confusing, but especially in audio, the language is so smooth and sharp that you want to keep listening. Recommended for anyone looking for a beautiful political romance that will leave you thinking long after you close the book.

Quotes from the book. ❤ ❤ ❤
My highlights!