Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Blood'
Così si perde la guerra del tempo by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
364 reviews
embersbooknook's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This book was a fucking masterpiece - I am nearly speechless. I thought I would read this book in a day, maybe two when I picked it up last weekend.
However, I found myself savoring it in bits and pieces this week.
Would I have read it so slowly had I not been so busy/tired? No. 😂
But it really allowed the book to sink in.
The prose and writing is so gorgeous and lush - poetic even. I used so many tabs marking beautiful passages.
Watching this love story unfold across time and space was a privilege to witness, and the twist at the end was so deliciously unexpected.
I would recommend this book to anyone - it is a wonderful adventure, and a moving love story. Mohtar and Gladstone masterfully wove an epic of ages - I only wish there was more to read!
Red and Blue were truly like dance partners, drawing us in and out of a tale that just leaves you savoring what is and also hungry for more.
Truly a breathtaking book - read it and thank me later!😉🤗
However, I found myself savoring it in bits and pieces this week.
Would I have read it so slowly had I not been so busy/tired? No. 😂
But it really allowed the book to sink in.
The prose and writing is so gorgeous and lush - poetic even. I used so many tabs marking beautiful passages.
Watching this love story unfold across time and space was a privilege to witness, and the twist at the end was so deliciously unexpected.
I would recommend this book to anyone - it is a wonderful adventure, and a moving love story. Mohtar and Gladstone masterfully wove an epic of ages - I only wish there was more to read!
Red and Blue were truly like dance partners, drawing us in and out of a tale that just leaves you savoring what is and also hungry for more.
Truly a breathtaking book - read it and thank me later!😉🤗
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Self harm, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
The stuff mentioned is brief and not overly graphic. But it is there, so just including it - I didn’t find the book difficult to stomach, and I am a very sensitive reader.christinewonder's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail
mmcz26's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Blood
Minor: Gore and War
miguelito_juanito's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Grief
Minor: Confinement, Torture, and Vomit
mausekuchen's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
This is one book in a million. Such an unique plot, setting and characters. I don't think I'll ever find something similar overall, but especially in tone as well.
There's nothing I would actually critique on this book. The ranking is due to my difficulties understanding the language of the book. I'd probably need to read this again/in my mother tongue to actually grasp the full complexitiy on all levels of it. Therefore I also lowkey struggled with being committed to reading it.
PS: I would have never thought I'd find such intense, all-consuming love letters in a sci-fi book. Especially written in such a way that I might consider wether I'm actually too cynical for stories with romance focus.
There's nothing I would actually critique on this book. The ranking is due to my difficulties understanding the language of the book. I'd probably need to read this again/in my mother tongue to actually grasp the full complexitiy on all levels of it. Therefore I also lowkey struggled with being committed to reading it.
PS: I would have never thought I'd find such intense, all-consuming love letters in a sci-fi book. Especially written in such a way that I might consider wether I'm actually too cynical for stories with romance focus.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Torture
Moderate: Body horror, Blood, and Medical content
imoran's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I am not okay - but I think, maybe, they are??
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Vomit and War
snowreo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
peppypenguin's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Beautiful writing and storytelling. It feels like a fever dream: you have a sense of the key concepts and how the characters and their relationship are developing. I could not, for my life, visualize the time-traveling and how it worked. That’s okay because the mechanics of the time traveling for each character and their factions serve more as a way to distinguish how they move about space and time and interact with the universe. It also forced me to take my time and digest the words on the page, and in turn the story.
This is great as a novella. Because there is so much poetic prose it helps to have the story told in fewer pages, making it move a bit faster.
The letters between the characters are very well planned. You get a sense of their voices, understand their worlds, and watch their relationship bloom. They feel so real, and have so much depth, and seeing how they fall for each other and leave messages across time, as well as how their paths cross throughout the story is fantastically done.
As a lover of science fiction, this hit the right spot. The time traveling and manipulation of events as it’s done by each side was really interesting! The two sides of the war (the different futures fighting to win) are really unique and so vastly different. I love how they are explained just enough to have real depth and thought put into them.
Red and Blue are wonderful characters. You never learn their real names, but that’s the point. They are opposite sides of the same coin, and to see how they start as pure enemies but eventually come together is beautiful. The genre and unique world of the book is used as a tool, masterfully so, to tell their story.
Lovers of romance and/or science fiction should give this a go.
This is great as a novella. Because there is so much poetic prose it helps to have the story told in fewer pages, making it move a bit faster.
The letters between the characters are very well planned. You get a sense of their voices, understand their worlds, and watch their relationship bloom. They feel so real, and have so much depth, and seeing how they fall for each other and leave messages across time, as well as how their paths cross throughout the story is fantastically done.
As a lover of science fiction, this hit the right spot. The time traveling and manipulation of events as it’s done by each side was really interesting! The two sides of the war (the different futures fighting to win) are really unique and so vastly different. I love how they are explained just enough to have real depth and thought put into them.
Red and Blue are wonderful characters. You never learn their real names, but that’s the point. They are opposite sides of the same coin, and to see how they start as pure enemies but eventually come together is beautiful. The genre and unique world of the book is used as a tool, masterfully so, to tell their story.
Lovers of romance and/or science fiction should give this a go.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Incest, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Torture
jillaay_h's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Blood
mikathereviewer's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
This was one of my most anticipated books for this month and I am so disappointed.
The following will only be a rant about the book. Nothing good I found except that we got an explanation that "Steganography is hidden writing." and that the ending was interesting.
As always; I respect opinions from others and therefore expect the same to be done to me. If you liked the book, so be it. I don't have anything against your opinion or rating to this book.
First of all the letter beginnings are so weird and cringe sometimes. Especially these references. When I understood it right the 'Dearest Blue-da-ba-dee,' is a reference of this one annoying frog song and we also get other cringe-worthy references like 'Dearest 0000FF' (colour hexcode, you all can't legit call this cute or romantic) and of course our so 'cool' flex with languages 'My dear Miskowaanzhe' which is Anishinaabemowin 'cause of course the author totally speaks that language and didn't translate this on full purpose to sound so 'cool'.
The whole writing was always the same, no matter which character wrote the letter and therefore it was sometimes hard to distinguish the two. Both therefore seemed also flat and we only get trauma dumping in the most inappropriate ways. They both also wrote almost since the beginning like they knew eachother since ages and not like strangers that form a bond over time, which made it unrealistic for me to belive that they later on fell in love.
The writing style was also unbearable to me. It was often poetically written but in either cringe or way to melodramatic ways.
Examples
1. ‘Have you ever had a hunger that whetted itself on what you fed it, sharpened so keen and bright that it might split you open, break a new thing out?
Sometimes I think that’s what I have instead of friends.’
2. ‘I have been birds and branches. I have been bees and wolves. I have been ether flooding the void between stars, tangling their breath into networks of song. I have been fish and plankton and humus, and all these have been me.’
3. ‘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 also never understood or rather we never got told what kind of creatures they both are. Even though it's science fiction, we barely get any of it. And we get almost no other explanations like how certain things worked like the ways with the MRI machine and stuff as that was their way of sending letter without being caught.
If the writing style would have been different and we would have got more explanations of things I might would have enjoyed the book more. But the whole book felt like a sketch that wasn't supposed to be published yet.
Wasn't for me, but perhaps someone else would like this story and its characters.
July 17, 2024
The following will only be a rant about the book. Nothing good I found except that we got an explanation that "Steganography is hidden writing." and that the ending was interesting.
As always; I respect opinions from others and therefore expect the same to be done to me. If you liked the book, so be it. I don't have anything against your opinion or rating to this book.
First of all the letter beginnings are so weird and cringe sometimes. Especially these references. When I understood it right the 'Dearest Blue-da-ba-dee,' is a reference of this one annoying frog song and we also get other cringe-worthy references like 'Dearest 0000FF' (colour hexcode, you all can't legit call this cute or romantic) and of course our so 'cool' flex with languages 'My dear Miskowaanzhe' which is Anishinaabemowin 'cause of course the author totally speaks that language and didn't translate this on full purpose to sound so 'cool'.
The whole writing was always the same, no matter which character wrote the letter and therefore it was sometimes hard to distinguish the two. Both therefore seemed also flat and we only get trauma dumping in the most inappropriate ways. They both also wrote almost since the beginning like they knew eachother since ages and not like strangers that form a bond over time, which made it unrealistic for me to belive that they later on fell in love.
The writing style was also unbearable to me. It was often poetically written but in either cringe or way to melodramatic ways.
Examples
1. ‘Have you ever had a hunger that whetted itself on what you fed it, sharpened so keen and bright that it might split you open, break a new thing out?
Sometimes I think that’s what I have instead of friends.’
2. ‘I have been birds and branches. I have been bees and wolves. I have been ether flooding the void between stars, tangling their breath into networks of song. I have been fish and plankton and humus, and all these have been me.’
3. ‘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 also never understood or rather we never got told what kind of creatures they both are. Even though it's science fiction, we barely get any of it. And we get almost no other explanations like how certain things worked like the ways with the MRI machine and stuff as that was their way of sending letter without being caught.
If the writing style would have been different and we would have got more explanations of things I might would have enjoyed the book more. But the whole book felt like a sketch that wasn't supposed to be published yet.
Wasn't for me, but perhaps someone else would like this story and its characters.
July 17, 2024
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, and War
Moderate: Suicide, Stalking, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Abandonment