A review by wolvenbolt
This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar

challenging emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? No

3.0

My review of the ebook:

  • This book was super slow, despite the short length of it.

  • The premise itself was super interesting, but the execution was very confusing.

  • I am not a huge fan of flowery prose, I find that most flowery prose is used to lengthen a story instead of actually providing vital description for the imagination, and I'm afraid this book is very guilty of that in my opinion. This book was verbose and ornate.

  • There was maybe 4 characters in total, two of which were the main characters Red and Blue, the others had one of two appearances and maybe 4 lines. So this book was very character focused only on the two main characters.

  • I found myself more interested in the world building and the reason for the war and how it began, now whether that was because it was so confusing and unclear and it kept niggling in the back of my head, I'm not sure, but the characters only began getting interesting for me around 65% of the book, which considering the short length of the book, I find troubling.

  • It was trying to be dark and romantic, Red was science fiction, a rational machine experiencing artistry and emotions and illogical things for the first time, and Blue was fantasy, a woman of abstract and fairylands somehow enamored by the cold rationale of a machine. Red's curiosity of Blue made sense, Blue's of Red did not, I think. 

  • I gave this book a 3 because of how good and engaging it got after the 65% mark. If the book stayed the same as before that point, I'd have gave this a 1.5 / 2 out of 5. 

  • Overall, the premise felt very original and interesting to me, the world building gripped me (when shown) despite the confusion. I'm just wondering why this world was dreamt up and used as the backdrop to this tiny story about two women on opposites of a war thinking they've fallen in love over each other through fantasy and sci-fi versions of communication and risk everything for as little interaction as possible.


  1. In summary, the prose was verbose and ornate, seemingly to prolong the book.
  2. The world building and the war used as a backdrop was very interesting and had great potential, but was wasted on this small love story inspired by Romeo and Juliet.
  3. The love dynamic didn't make much sense to me.
  4. Got interesting at 65% mark.
  5. Small book that felt extremely long and became a drag to read.