Ginny Frost 
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max
Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar fulfilled the category “Book my Best Friend Would Love” for the PopSugar 2021
challenge. Both my best friends are avid readers. I had a dozen choices for
this one but ended up with my husband’s choice. He’s not a romance reader,
unlike my bestie since seventh grade, Jen. Boy, he was surprised by this title.
This is a sci-fi romance. No question. As far as I
can tell, no one is selling this novel as a romance. But it has all the beats
in a beautiful, complex format.
How to explain this story… It’s a wild ride, full of twists and turns, as one would
expect from a time travel novel.
Let’s
work on that first. Not only is this a time travel book, but it’s the quintessence
of time travel books. The two protagonists travel all over the timeline,
creating alternate realities in an attempt to win the time war for their own
side.
Wait,
let’s talk about that. The two protagonists are time warriors, traveling the
strands of time, altering events, trying to sabotage the other side in a war
that ravages forever. One person, Red, is for all intents and purposes is a
cyborg with complex anatomy that works to her advantage to survive her
missions. The other, Blue, seems to be a plant-based entity born from a mother
plant and part of the intricate machinery devised to win the war. The war, the
characters, the world are complicated, and we get no genuine answers.
Instead of a hard sci-fi story about sabotage, war,
and alternate timelines, we get a budding love story between these two
antagonists. Blue, for some reason, leaves a note for Red at an essential moment.
Red was leery but fascinated by her archenemy would leave an actual written
message. She messages back. The two string secret messages along the timeline in
wondrous and inventive ways. Blue grew one message in a tree over hundreds of
years. Slowly, romance blooms through their notes until they are essential to each
other’s existence.
I don’t
want to spoil, but OMG, the black moment and the happy ending. Sigh, it was
perfect.
I enjoyed the book, but honestly, it was complicated.
A second read might be in order to appreciate the crafting of the tale. We are never
privileged to background information. We get glimpses of the personal history
of the mains, but no details. We don’t
know why the war is happening, only that it is. And spoiler! In the end, we
only care if these two lovers win. (Oh, yeah. It’s not just a romance. It’s a
lesbian romance, and it’s beautiful!)
I listened to the tale with two readers, which helped
me differentiate between Blue and Red. It was tough to follow who was who
without those details of their personality, hopes and dreams, and home life. We
know little, except the two females end up clinging to probably the only
friendship either has ever had. They only write, never seeing each other or
having any physical relationship. But the love is real, binding, and timeless.
Go read this one.
I give This Is
How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar Four Secret
Messages in Tea Leaves.