Book Review: This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Save me from non-traditional narratives please… When, oh when, will I learn that they aren’t for me?! I try and try, but always struggle. It’s ABSOLUTELY a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” – especially here.

I was so excited by this one, the blurb and the excerpt grabbed me right from the first time I saw them. The writing was poetic and lovely and the plot was a very clever construct in a field – time travel – that is rapidly becoming overpopulated and repetitive. But I struggled with it from the second time interlude on, and ultimately had to admit it wasn’t for me.

This is wholly original, I will grant the authors that. And the writing is gorgeous, if your taste tends toward flowery Victoriana… But the non-traditional narrative format just never engaged me enough to allow me to connect with the characters or their burgeoning relationship. The prose in their letters back and forth was admittedly lovely, and the word games and verbal sparring were cool – up to a point. Then the overly dramatic, overly descriptive, and frankly overblown language started to lose me. It didn’t help that there’s never any backstory provided and I had the feeling I was stepping into a river midstream throughout as much of the book as I was able to read…

This one just wasn’t a good fit for me.

Thanks to BookishFirst for my raffle copy of this book.