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A review by solarmatrixcobra
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Really refreshing story after having DNFed a whole bunch of romantasy books and MF romances and having realized too many of them are the boring same old thing. I did not particularly like the lyrical prose in this one though--it was just incredibly confusing to read most of the time. The only scene/chapter that I didn't get a headache from while reading was the one where Red talks to her commander, and if the entire book was written mostly in that style instead, I would have given this 5 stars for sure. I love cool and fresh ideas and stories in books, but I just enjoy myself the most when the writing and pacing is closer to what you'd typically find in YA, but sadly, a lot of YA book also happen to be really poorly written plotting-wise and unoriginal, which is why it's so rare for me to rate a book 5 stars.
I also found it strange when I read a few reviews saying they didn't understand why the characters fell in love, which is weird because I definitely felt like I shipped the characters (I forgot it was a romance) and was then pleasantly surprised when they started confessing their feelings and I relized oh yeah that was actually advertised to happen! I say I was surprised at how much I shipped the characters early on because I have read many (MF) romances in the past and I felt like most of them the characters had no reasons to like each other other than because they found each other hot, and the relationships were all just very shallow with more sex than any deeper connection really. But I guess that's why maybe I only stumbled upon one or two of such reviews, because I genuinely feel like the romance was developed very subtly and very well. For th frist time in a long time, I actually wanted to see these two characters get together, and that's not something that happens a lot for me. IDK if it's just the nature of MF books because so many of them these days are regurgitated slop where the characters have 0 chemistry outside of finding each other hot, but this was definitely what I would expect from romance. I've all but given up on MF romance now and am embracing my identity as a WLW reader now. The stories just seem to have more variety and don't feel like I'm reading the same book over and over again, even if my star rating may vary.
I also found it strange when I read a few reviews saying they didn't understand why the characters fell in love, which is weird because I definitely felt like I shipped the characters (I forgot it was a romance) and was then pleasantly surprised when they started confessing their feelings and I relized oh yeah that was actually advertised to happen! I say I was surprised at how much I shipped the characters early on because I have read many (MF) romances in the past and I felt like most of them the characters had no reasons to like each other other than because they found each other hot, and the relationships were all just very shallow with more sex than any deeper connection really. But I guess that's why maybe I only stumbled upon one or two of such reviews, because I genuinely feel like the romance was developed very subtly and very well. For th frist time in a long time, I actually wanted to see these two characters get together, and that's not something that happens a lot for me. IDK if it's just the nature of MF books because so many of them these days are regurgitated slop where the characters have 0 chemistry outside of finding each other hot, but this was definitely what I would expect from romance. I've all but given up on MF romance now and am embracing my identity as a WLW reader now. The stories just seem to have more variety and don't feel like I'm reading the same book over and over again, even if my star rating may vary.
Content Warnings
Moderate: War
Minor: Death, Torture, and Murder