This Is How You Lose the Time War

It's hard for me to give this book anything else but a 5 star review. What an amazing experience. What a masterful crafting of prose and wordplay and layers and layers of meaning. What a beautiful, solid, and concise plot. It's a pretty short, quick read but this book doesn't waste a single page or word. To really summarise the story, this is basically about time travelling agents from two opposing factions of a Time War, who begin to leave letters for each other through time, space, and places. They begin by taunting each other as well-matched adversaries, but it slowly morphs into something more.

Compelling hook that keeps you wanting to find out more? Check.
Unique storytelling format? Check.
Characters that you want to root for? Check.
Believable chemistry? 100% check.
Amazing world and “magic” system? Check.
Rereadability value? Check.

Personally, I found myself hooked not by the plot but by the beautiful writing from El-Mohtar and Gladstone. The prose treads a line between gorgeous and bloated, but luckily for me I found it absolutely beautiful. I appreciated the hilarious, interesting, and really intelligent wordplay. I made myself slow down to read every line and every word - something I don't do for most books that I read - just so I could see if I could catch every nudge nudge wink wink moment.

The plot and the storytelling just worked so well with each other too. If you find yourself lost with the setting and what exactly the Time War is - don't worry, you're not alone. Frankly, I even stopped bothering trying to get my bearings after a while and just went along for the ride. But I think this is also where the book becomes very re-readable. There're so many hidden details, easter eggs, and buried meanings within its prose that by Chapter 7, I already had an itch to reread the book because I felt like I was only getting the tip of the iceberg. I rarely re-read books that aren't classics, but this is definitely something that I would be super game to do so for, and I'm betting that I'd be able to learn more and more things the more times I re-read it.

Timey-wimey plots are difficult to work through and I'm not sure whether there might be some loopholes if I really think hard enough about it, but honestly Time War just does everything else so well that I don't even care anymore. I'd recommend this to just about anyone and everyone.

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2nd read (2023) review:

This is a re-read for me and oh boy did I love it even more. Now that I actually had a better idea of the plot, I think I had more headspace to appreciate the lovely wordplay and writing in this one instead of spending my time trying to piece things together in my head.

The writing here is exquisite, but also not for everyone - it's so polarizing that I would hesitate to give this a blanket recommendation. “My prose purples,” as Red says in one of the chapter, and indeed the writing style in this book could easily be read as purple prose. I will say, though, if one likes this type of writing, you will absolutely love how it is done here.

An important tip for anyone reading this book: don't try to make sense of the plot or the world. Instead, enjoy this book by immersing yourself in the here and now on the page. Enjoy the wordplay, the literary references, and the chemistry between the two protagonists. I know after the end of my first read-through, I couldn't give you a clear idea of the world or the backstory of the plot here - and that's OK, I still loved it all the same. Now at the end of my second read-through, I'm perhaps a little bit clearer about the backstory but I'm not too concerned about really getting it straight here. I don't feel like that's the intention of the authors.

Also just wanted to give a shout-out to the audiobook narrators, Emily Woo Zeller and Cynthia Farrell! They injected so much feeling into the reading and in a way that wasn't cringey. I was thoroughly impressed by the performances and felt like they really elevated the prose, which is saying a lot.