A review by godlizza
Time Was by Ian McDonald
2.0
I knew the synopsis of this book before I read it: two men fall in love in ww2 but an experiment goes wrong and they're flung apart through space and time. They leave notes for each other in books of poetry, hoping to get their timelines to intersect so they can be reunited. If I hadn't known this I would've been even more confused than I was when I started reading. There's a lot of jumping around through time and perspective, which is expected I guess but it took me a while to figure out who and when I was reading from.
Also this book is really mis-marketed. The majority of the story is told from a seperate man in modern day trying to figure out the mystery of Tom and Ben. The ending tries to justify why he's here but it just didn't work for me. I went into this book expecting it to be a love story, and I would say that that's my fault for having presumptions if it weren't for the book being marketed AS A LOVE STORY.
The letters between the couple that we get to see were really lovely and had that desperate, romantic yearning I wanted to read more of. This book has a great concept but the execution leaves me wanting. The prose was nice and it was short so I sped through it but ultimately I was let down.
Also this book is really mis-marketed. The majority of the story is told from a seperate man in modern day trying to figure out the mystery of Tom and Ben. The ending tries to justify why he's here but it just didn't work for me. I went into this book expecting it to be a love story, and I would say that that's my fault for having presumptions if it weren't for the book being marketed AS A LOVE STORY.
The letters between the couple that we get to see were really lovely and had that desperate, romantic yearning I wanted to read more of. This book has a great concept but the execution leaves me wanting. The prose was nice and it was short so I sped through it but ultimately I was let down.