This Is How You Lose the Time War
Reviews
that girl that recommended this to me at the bookstore was right: tough the first few chapters out and it will make sense. this was beautiful and lyrical, the way it wrote imagery and concepts that should be all too outlandish felt familiar still, and warm. i can't remember the last time i read yearning like this and i would do it again, teary-eyed at a coffee shop.
HELL YEAH! Loved love love this book! It was captivating from the start! That twist? DID NOT see it coming?!? The love. The yearning. All so sweet and how it all came together in the end. I know people either love or hate this book and I’m soo glad I got to be on the side that loved it 🥰
Decided to complicate my own life by reading it in English and that's why the beginning was a little bit hard for me, however the story was so compelling that I pushed through my linguistic difficulties. I loved this book so much, it moved me in a way no book has recently. Soooo recommended
Lowkey corny but cool ideas
This excellent book is an explosion of ideas, and it’s so wonderfully written. The ways B and R get to read each others letters reach a next level of creativity! I just love them.
doomed yuri … my favorite kind of pain
Enchanting, addictive, unique love story.
I really enjoyed this book.
Good world building without getting too caught up in the details; this is not hard sci-fi in that way.
It is a high concept love story and I was very here for it!
Also, in the words of the great Roy Kent, "you can't put it down because the chapters are so short!"
It's confusing, there isn't a sequence in the history. However, the poetry in chasing is wonderful.
it has been a long while since i had a book bring me to snot and tears and this one did it!
the writing and the prose was beautiful and the imagery was astounding. i love the feeling of love and to be able to feel and read interest grow into this all consuming love between red and blue was…it was amazing!
this is a book i will wish i can go back and read for the first time for the rest of my life.
beautiful prose but very difficult to read as a first-time narrative :c but its merit probably rests on being very very very second read–worthy, even if only to keep unboxing this very layered (but vague!) novel. i liked the slight references to history tho (which i think would also benefit from a re-read)
It’s confusing. But I enjoyed the tangle of confusion as it goes. Poetic, might even be too flowery. Deserves a second read.
This literally fried my brain.
perhaps not a favourite in terms of personal enjoyment, but i cannot give this less than 5 stars. i’ve never read anything like it in my life. granted, it was a challenging read especially since i dived into it totally blind, so it confused me a lot at the beginning (not to speak of the amount of words i had to look up, i’m not a native speaker but i always thought my english level to be pretty good, and now this made me question my entire existence), but it's so gratifying! and at some point you just... willingly lose yourself in the beautiful prose. this book will haunt me for days.
sigh me and who
This is the kind of book you read again, and again, and again. I feel like not only are there a bunch of hidden things you might grasp over time, but also the story is just so beautiful. It has eluded me for years because it’s one of those books that you start and you’re like, “what the hell is going on?”. It has sci-fi elements that confused me but i think that part of the book is like an accessory, or like a stage, for the main story which is Blue and Red, Red and Blue.
“There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? I imagine you laughing at my small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I have you still? Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never—and I have to write the rest of this not knowing.”
I just loved the concept of time travel and connection and yearning. Blue and Red’s letters to each other were literal gems. Each one was so romantic and personal, even in the beginning when they were just “enemies” to each other. I loved watching their connection grow with each one becoming more tender than the last. If someone told me they wanted to make me a bouquet of flowers that only bloom once a century, i would immediately fold. Summing up this review simply… me when??
Really beautiful and poetic. A lot of people have said that they had a hard time following the plot due to its writing style but fortunately for me I did not have that much of a problem with it. This story captured my attention in the best way possible. The way the letters are written is simply beautiful and outstanding. The places where each letter was, how it got there and the whole setting was written in a very interesting and I would say kind of a raw way! I absolutely recommend this to anyone who loves anything poetic and a bit bittersweet!
3.75
[personal copy]
so beautifully written. Evoked a roller coaster of emotions and was almost impossible to put down. ❤️💙
simultaneously thrilling and exhausting
Highlights
When you said you wouldn't write again, when you saidthat is the only letter of yours I've wanted to obliterate from myself. If I'm honest, that's part of why I took the bait. To be unmnade, that last written over-to be destroyed by you was easier, truly, than living with what you proposed.
"Garden doesn't deserve us. Nei- ther does the Agency." By us she means herself and Blue, wherever she may be, if in fact she is. She means all of them, all the ghosts on all the threads dying in this sick old war. Even this guard. Red gives her this truth, at the last. Maybe it will save her life. The guard throws her into the cell anyway.
"Garden doesn't deserve us. Nei- ther does the Agency." By us she means herself and Blue, wherever she may be, if in fact she is. She means all of them, all the ghosts on all the threads dying in this sick old war. Even this guard. Red gives her this truth, at the last. Maybe it will save her life. The guard throws her into the cell anyway.
Iloved you. That was true. With what's left of me I can't help but love you still This is how you win, Red: a long game, a subtle hand played well. You played me like a symphony, and I hope you won't mind my feeling a little proud of you for such a magnificent betrayal.
Dearest, deepest Blue- At the end as at the start, and through all the in-be- tweens, I love you. Red
I'm sorry. No. If we're this far, if you've been this selfish-I did not mean that. I would have fought you forever. I would have wrestled you through time. I would have turned you, and been turned. would do anything. I have done so much, and would have done as much again, and more. And yet here I am, a fool, writing you one last time, and here you are, a fool, reading me. We're one, at least, in folly. I hope you never read these words. I sicken to write them; I know how it will hurt you to reach this far. It is always too late to say what must be said.
And yet you'd never fit in mine. I wish I could have shown you where I'm from, hand in hand, the world I set out to build and to protectI don't think you woud have liked it, but I want to see it reflected in your eyes. I wish I could have seen your braid, and I wish we could have left all those horror shows behind and found one together, for ourselves. That's all I want now. A small place, a dog, green grass. To touch your hand. To run my fingers through your hair.
Give me up. Leave now. There's still a chance-however slim. I love you. I love you. I love you. Go. Forever yours, Red And yet you're still here. Aren't you. Immune to my ruses, Indigo. I hoped you would leave and save yourself. But you remain. I think I would too. I hope I would be that brave, if you are. That we each would give up as much to read the other's last few lines, written in water and forever Ilove you, If you've come this far, that's all I can say. I love you and I love you and I love you, on battlefields, in shadows, in fading ink, on cold ice splashed with the blood of seals. In the rings of trees. In the wreckage ofa planet crumbling to space. In bubbling water. In bee stings and dragonfly wings, in stars. In the depths of lonely woods where I wandered in my youth, staring upand even then you watched me. You slid back through my life, and I have know you since before I knew you. (red)
Put the letter down. We'll have each other still, as memories and rivals. We'll confront ourselves in the chase through time as it was when I first learned the shape of you. We can still dance, as enemies. Just stop now, and live and love and let be. Stop, my love. Stop. (red)
Put the letter down. We'll have each other still, as memories and rivals. We'll confront ourselves in the chase through time as it was when I first learned the shape of you. We can still dance, as enemies. Just stop now, and live and love and let be. Stop, my love. Stop. (red)
She thinks, Do not read this. She remembers how it felt so long ago to taunt her, to rejoice in victory. Blueberry. Blue-da-ba-dee. Mood Indigo. She tries to channel that memory against all that's hap- pened since. She can't. She thinks, Some time traveler I am. Blue won't fall for this. She will listen. She received the letter. She will understand. She must. The only future they have is one apart and together. They lived for so long with- out knowing one another, warring through time. They were separate, they did not speak, but each shaped the other, even as they were shaped in turn. So just go back to that. Why not? It will hurt. They've hurt before, to save each other's lives. But there is another path. One she cannot bear to chart, and yet she must, because while Blue is subtle, she is also bold, and this may be the last chance Red will have.
She sleeps and dreams of letters. (blue)
I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. Youll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to you. But never again like this. Iam so sorry. IfI had been stronger. Faster. Smarter. Better. If i had been worth you. If You would not want me to curse myselfthis way. You'll have to burn this. I hope you can keep it. I keep the memory. Iimagine your hands on the paper. I imagine your fire. I wish I could hold you. Ilove you. R
Your letter, the sting, the beauty ofit. Those forevers you promise. Neptune. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. Listen to me-I am your echo. I would rather break the world than lose you. I see one solution. It's-it should be-easy. Let me go. And Ill let you.
I want to scorch the thousand earths between us to see what blooms from the ash, so we can discover it hand in hand, content in context, intelligible only to each other. I want to meet you in every place I have loved. I don't know howit's done between such as us, Red. But I can't wait to find out together. Love, Blue
Red, I love you. Red, I will send you letters from everywhere telling you so, letters of only one word, letters that will brush your cheek and grip your hair, letters that will bite you, letters that will mark you.
Red. Red, Red, Red, I want to write you poetry, and I am laughing, understand, as teach this small body my joy, laughing at the joke of me and the relief, the relief of being supine on a stone slab with a knife above mine and seeing your hand and eyes guiding it. That surrender should be satiety. That it should have taken me this long to learn that.
I sought loneliness when I was young. You've seen me there: on my I promontory, patient and unaware. But when I think of you, I want to be alone together. I want to strive against and for. I want to live in contact. I want to be a context for you, and you for me. Ilove you, and I love you, and I want to find out what that means together. Love, Red
I sought loneliness when I was young. You've seen me there: on my I promontory, patient and unaware. But when I think of you, I want to be alone together. I want to strive against and for. I want to live in contact. I want to be a context for you, and you for me. Ilove you, and I love you, and I want to find out what that means together. Love, Red
Your praise though I speak so easily of certain things, though I rush through ground that to you seems mined, it's only earth to me. But your last letter. ..I am so good at missing things. At making myself not see. I stand at a cliff's edge, and -hell. Ilove you, Blue. cuts me, because Have I always? Haven't I?
Sometimes when you write, you say things I stopped myself from saying. (blue)
I want to sharpen your hungers fully as much as I long to satisfy them, one letter-seed at a time. I want to tell you something about myself. Something true, or nothing at all. Yours, Blue
So I tire myself with work, and I sleep, and dreams come. I dream of you. I keep more of you inside my mind, my physical, per- per- sonal, squishy mind, than I keep of any other world or time. I dream my- self a seed between your teeth, or a tree tapped by your reed.
And in your absence you are deadly as a blade. Lacking letters, lacking the tremors of your footsteps through time, I seek out your memories; I ask myself what you would say and do if you were here.