Rating : ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 

This Is How You Lose the Time War is difficult to summarize without unraveling the beautifully composted story within. So, I will say this. This is a story about two rival agents chasing each other through time undoing each other’s work and leaving a letter behind.

To quote V. E. Schwab’s review “Holy shit this was good.”

There isn’t much context in the book, just erratic snapshots of where the agent is in that thread of time, but the correspondence is the real story. Being that it is barely over 200 pages, around 209, I don’t really want to go into detail other than the progression feels organic. The way that Red and Blue begin to relate is a slow and steady build up in spite of it being such a short book.

It’s one of those sci-fi books that leaves tiny hints of it’s intentions throughout the page for you to appreciate on your second readthrough, but it doesn’t take away from the original story. The writing is passionate and to quote my boyfriend when I shared a passage, “intense”.

I’m glad I picked this up and if you’re on the fence about it. I’ll boil it down a little. If you’re looking for a grand space adventure, this might not be the book for you. If you’re more interested in something character driven that reads like poetry at times. Read it. Enjoy it. I did.