This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-MohtarMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love epistolary novels. Reading a story told only through the words of one person to another - with all of their own biases as they write - pulls me in like no other. It gives you a feel for the characters that just doesn't come through the same way as a traditional novel does.
This novel had been on my radar for awhile, to the point I'd even taken it out of the library and let it languish on my shelf until it needed to be returned. (That happens with far more regularity than it should.) Then, when I was looking for book clubs to join, this came up as the read for this month in one of them. What better way to make sure I read it than join a book club? I borrowed the ebook copy from the library and dove in.
I am so glad I did! This was one of the best stories I've read this year. Being a novella, it only took me a couple of hours to read it, but it didn't feel quick. Rather, it was like savoring a cup of tea, taking your time with each page. By the end, it was both a story that ended satisfactorily as well as one that you wouldn't be disappointed to see the next chapter.
Red is an agent for the Agency, traveling up and down the threads of the timelines to try to stop the incursions of the Garden and assure the timelines that she travels play out the way the Agency wants them to. One day, after a battle that ended exactly as Red had planned, she found a note on the battlefield. "Burn Before Reading" was written on the outside. And that began her unusual conversation with Blue, the Garden's agent equivalent to Red.
What follows is letters passed through their travels, each "written" and "read" in a different way (one was in the rings of a tree that Blue had grown to show the message that only Red could read). Between each letter, we get to see what the recipient was doing before the letter was found and how they came upon it. The letters start as short missives, speaking admiration of the other's skill. But slowly, the two start to share more about themselves and their world. As so often happens in our world, both had views of the other's society that didn't quite fit reality. And as each learned more, shared more, they found common ground. Love blooms, but how can they love in societies which want to crush one another.
The letters were a perfect growth from admiration to friendship to love. Starting from a place where Red isn't sure she should trust these letters from Blue and she isn't sure that she should trust the letters from Red, it weaves through pen-pal like sharing, Blue's sharing of letter etiquette and hidden meanings from time gone by, to declarations of love and finally, to a forced betrayal. It feels natural, though the otherness of Red, Blue and the world they inhabit feels very strange indeed.
The parts between the letters also serve to introduce another character - the seeker, who appears after the letter is destroyed, to take pieces of it into themself. By the end of the story, the seeker and their purpose is revealed and it adds a wonderful twist to the ending that I hadn't seen coming until it was revealed.
Much of the last quarter of the novel is told in a traditional narrative rather than via the letters, with a good reason that I'm not sharing so as not to spoil anything. But that is where the novel also really comes full circle and pieces from the past letters and intersections make perfect sense. It really was the only way for the story to come to a conclusion.
All in all, I highly recommend this novella. Especially if you like epistolary novels, non-traditional relationships, sci-fi and time travel. It has it all but it doesn't feel overcrowded. This is one that I'm going to have to purchase for myself so I can read and reread, as well as pass it along to others to do the same.
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