I’ve never been shy about letting my love of strange stories shine through. When I started asking people for book recommendations a friend immediately told me to read This Is How You Lose the Time War. A time travel romance? Full of time loops, paradoxes, and frankly bizarre set pieces? All set against the background of an endless war? Sign me up!
For all the talk of time paradoxes the story of This Is How You Lose the Time War’ is rather straightforward. There’s an endless war happening across space and time between two factions: The Agency, based on machines, and The Garden, based on plants. Both are as equally cruel, violent and unforgiving as the other. Our so-called heroes of the story are Red, the agent for The Agency, and Blue, the agent for The Garden. They start off at odds, always following and undoing each other’s work across time, leaving taunting messages behind as they go. But over time the messages grow soft, caring, and turn into so much more as love blossoms between the two enemies. But love never comes easy, and it’ll take all of their tricks to earn their happily ever after.
What I liked most about the book is how the time travel is presented. Our two heroes jump forward and back with ease, even to different dimensions, all for the sake of making sure their side wins. Their tasks in each time can range from being a warrior, to living the simple life of a farmer’s wife, to making sure the wind brushes against a pile of bones just the right way. The two agents live and die by the butterfly effect, always nudging reality towards their goals with the lightest of touches. They also use this to leave their taunting-turned-love letters at the exact moment for the other to find, sometimes as a normal note, sometimes as rings in a tree or encased in the belly of an animal.
The biggest issue I have with the story is the prose. The prose in the story is extremely purple, which for the most part really ads to the time traveling and love story. However, I found it extremely thick at times to the point where it became hard to tell what was a flowery description and what was actually happening in the story. I had to go back and read some sections several times before I understood what was going on. Maybe that’s the point of it, but for me it was a personal struggle.
In short, This Is How You Lose the Time War is a touching bittersweet romance that’s occasionally weighed down by heavy prose but is worth tackling for such a unique story. I can see myself re-reading this again and again, and recommend it to anyone looking for romance with a twist.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene
I actually found that the poetic prose increased the intensity for me, so I didn’t mind it, even though I’m not usually into purple prose. My issue with it was slightly different. With two authors, they had an opportunity to make the voices of Red and Blue distinct, but they weren’t.
Also, all the cultural references somehow came from our culture and timeline, which is hard not to do, but stood out for me nonetheless.
Still, I very much enjoyed this novella, despite the fact that the protagonists weren’t the sort of good-hearted people I usually prefer to follow.