This is How You Lose the Time War
Amal El-Mohtar
Max Gladstone
Saga Press
2019
Ms. Hen does not know how she decided to read this novel, but she had it on a post-it note on her desk for a long time, so she decided to buy it. She knew she must have read about it, or listened to a podcast about it, but she does not remember.
This novella is written by two people, which Ms. Hen thinks is interesting. It's an epistolary book, which means it is written in letters. The entire book is not letters, some are sections in third person, but it is a conversation between two people, Red and Blue, and they are agents in a time war.
Red and Blue send letters to each other, and they receive them in unique ways. One is through the rings of a tree, an another is delivered by a Canada goose.
They travel through time, and avoid each other, but pine for each other at the same time. Lots of images of nature appear in this book, birds and insects and flowers. Ms. Hen loved the description of birds, because she is a fan, being one herself.
A statement in the book spoke to Ms. Hen because it is something she has been thinking about, "It's not that I never noticed before how many red things there are in the world. It's that they were never any relevant to me than green or white or gold. Now it's as if the whole world sings to me in petals, feathers, pebbles, blood." Ms. Hen has noticed the red things in the world recently, and how they pop out in her vision. She thinks this might happen to a lot of people.
This novel reminds Ms. Hen of other works, like the fairy tale novels she has read recently, such as A Spindle Splintered. It also reminds her of Doctor Who, of course, because of time travel.
Ms. Hen thinks this novel is charming and beautiful. It's short, but sometimes Ms. Hen likes to read things that are fast. This book is about love through time, and despair and desperation. Ms. Hen believes this book would delight the right type of person, one with Ms. Hen's impeccable sensibilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment