"This Is How You Lose the Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Looking at the reviews for this book, it becomes evident that people's opinions are split. Some love the book; some hate it. One commenter even called this the longest short book they've ever read, and I agree. It doesn't read like a usual sci-fi novel but as a long poem that doesn't rhyme.

I didn't hate the book; some of the passages, as a poem, were beautiful. However, the writers forgot to add the word "sci" to their "fi." The world is severely underexplored, and the "time" in "time war?" Yeah, after reading and watching so much material on time travel, this is as banal as it gets. Even The Terminator in 2025 contains more novelty than this book.

I'm running in circles here because the book's "sci-fi" is only a pretense to show the readers a love story and coerce sci-fi readers into reading a romantic novel. I don't know how to feel about it. In the end, the "plot twist" is something new sci-fi writers would imagine. Again, it's beautifully written, but not enough "sci" in this "fi."

"This Is How You Lose the Time War" can compete with "Twilight" (which is not an easy feat) but loses miserably to "Recursion" or "Dark Matter." I'm not sure if I'd recommend you read it, maybe only if you want something out of romantic novels and haven't read many of them.