Welcome to Litsy!

Maybe I am just not quite smart enough but there were swathes of this one where I was not quite sure what was happening and crucially not sure I cared. I do know the language was beautiful - words of longing and exploration and loneliness but it still left huge gaps as a cohesive story for me. I suspect I might give it another go and find more in the language to love and maybe a better understanding of the actual time war. Low pick

#FeelinTheLove

The letters in this unique time travel story become #LoveLetters 🩵 I think I need to read it again.

#BookChain2025

#TBRTheBookwormRevolution
#TBRStartofanEra - Revolution Read
#TBRJanuary
#TheBookwormRevolution

According to Storygraph, this is my third time reading this book (and it may actually be my fourth), and I enjoyed it just as much as the first time I read it. It is a strange, beautifully poetic, confounding at times read that sticks with you. ⬇️

Reading this for the third or fourth time. I just love it so much and notice something new every time I read it. It is one of #TBRTheBookworkRevolution's Revolution Reads for the month, so I had to read it again!

Bicycle, gravcycle, what's the difference? (“Bicycle“ is also in the author bio, so it's not even cheating).

#WickedWords @AsYouWish

Last year was a fabulous reading year with several 5 star reads!

Nope, not for me, I had to bail.
Couldn't enter into the story, didn't care about the characters.
There are too many other books I'm enthusiastic about for me to lose valuable time with one I don't connect to.

Beautifully poetic, but suffers from it also at times if you plan for a straightforward narrative. Of course this is about time travel, so the unwieldy structure fits and gives the reader a more impressionistic pallet from which the story bubbles up. Should come with a user recommendation to “best read in one sitting” to thoroughly enjoy.

This is such an intriguing book! I only knew it involved time ⏰ 🧳 and I am loving the epistolary back & forth. My only to-dos today, besides walk the CopperBop, is to finish this book and write ✍️ a few letters 💌📬

#Nov2024 Book101

I am going to include these quotes; the first one to my friend in MS and the erosion one to my brother, the geologist. The third one made me laugh.

Current read (which was referenced by The Seven Year Slip author Ashley Poston) and I happened to have on my shelf.

This book was giving
Romeo and Juliet
Sans the tragedy
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#haikureview

“Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was wound in a vein. She stained the page with herself. She sometimes forgets what she wrote, save that it was true, and the writing hurt.“

I can appreciate why people have raved about it but it just didn‘t evoke much of anything but frustration for me. I think I also disagree with the characterization as “sapphic”. The characters are called “she” but with all the body swapping and pod creation, the many lived experiences…gender just doesn‘t really seem to play any great role in the story for me. Some truly beautiful language in places, but overall just ‘eh‘ for me.

#LongDistanceLove ❤️💌💙 #ItTakesAllKinds ☘️🌈🌷🌞

#BookNerd 🤓📚💙

When Red wins, she stands alone.

#FirstLineFriday
@ShyBookOwl

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Slightly rounding up.

After a few pages, I made a note in the margin that said, "I don't like this so far." It was weird. So weird. And then, somewhere along the way, it became beautiful and brilliant and human. It had so many layers.

This book kind of reminds me of looking through a kaleidoscope - with every spin, the pieces are reorganized into a new design. And as the light pours through, their brilliance is brought to life.

Finished 13 February 2024.

Cracking up the first book offered by the only person daring to gift me books on my birthday ;)

I *just* finished reading about an epic battle between Red & Blue, and then immediately went into work to begin this task.

I‘m literally painting a red mailbox blue. This is unintentionally HILARIOUS. I‘m dy(e)ing. 😅

This book‘s origin story is beyond cool.

It‘s about two warring factions, traveling through time and manipulating events (often in small ways but sometimes hugely & violently) to ensure that their side wins. The two protagonists are agents for each side: Red & Blue. They begin leaving one another letters, taunting at first, and they fall in love.

The book is co-written, one author responsible for each perspective/alternating chapter. 👇🏻

First book of 2024!
A sapphic adventure starring two time traveling agents, opposite in motivation. A compelling SF journey. I feel something every time I open it up!

I picked this up for my local indie‘s January virtual book club/reading challenge. I went into it blind, and it‘s not at all what I expected based on the title. It‘s kind of an enemies to lovers romance with warring factions racing up and down various timelines. The audio was a little tough to follow despite separate narrators for the two POVs, but still well done.

I hated this book. Too abstract and full of prose. I could barely follow it and skimmed lots of it. It came highly recommended but I only read it to be done with it.

First book of 2024! Gorgeously written - I sped through because I was so invested, but I already want to savor a reread. Love a time travel love story! #scifi

The results are in!! Honestly hard to decide between Sign Here and the Time War. They‘re so different, but what I loved about both of them is that they really blended genres in a way that felt fresh and compelling. In the end, Time War is the pick because it just filled me with so much love.
Happy almost New Year!! #ReadingBracket2023 #2023ReadingBracket

An easy pick for April, my one 5 star read. Though honorable mention to Dear Prudence by Daniel Lavery.

This was one of the best sci-fi books that I‘ve read. It‘s unique and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.

Every time travel story needs a time loop, and This Is How You Lose the Time War has a clever one. The world, however, remains terribly abstract. Even the co-protagonists, Red and Blue, are more concepts than people. I found this simultaneously fascinating and unsatisfying. It would actually make an excellent comic if the lyrical prose was accompanied by illustrations.

This is a really interesting use of the epistolary form, as the novel is mainly comprised of letters between Red and Blue. The language is gorgeous, meditative, agonized, and potent, but it throws me off slightly that Red and Blue, who are agents of diametrically opposed and incompatible possible futures, sound so much alike. Their voices should more fully reflect how vastly different their societies are.

Like a sci-fi version of Killing Eve

My heart!!!!
Pick is not a strong enough word!!! The sheer poetry, the originality, the absolute indescribable perfection.
These two authors put pure love on the page with unabashed surrender.
As someone never prone to hyperbole (jokes!), I think this is the best book I‘ve ever read.

Enjoyed it.

I‘m struggling with this book so I thought I‘d hit the porch at CoffeeSmith and see if some treats and a beautiful morning could help me enjoy this book.

#MidYearBookFreakOut I love this hashtag!

1. This is How You Lose the Time War. For book published in 2023, We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian,

2. ok, this is embarrassing but... The Heir Apparent's Rejected Mate by Cate C. Wells. 😊

3. Happy Place by Emily Henry. I started it on audio but even though I usually love that narrator, didn't get into it.

4. Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Loved the Ex Talk and Weather girl.

cont.

Continuing with my theme of reading only LGBTQ+ books this month, I finished this one and its heartbreaking. I loved the gradual build of Red and Blue‘s relationship as much as I loved the ease of the sci-fi and the beauty of the writing.

#lgbtq+ #lgbtqia2s+ #wlw #june #pride #pridemonth

Blue. Red. Two opposing operatives. A war across time itself. Is anything more important than winning?

I adored everything about this. The writing was lyrical and poetic. This was the first time I felt the enemies to lovers trope actually worked for me. An unexpected ending. The evolution of the salutations!

This whole thing felt like a dream. I desperately want to listen to the audiobook now. & I have to look up more of El-Mohtar. 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

I did all the adult things that needed to be done yesterday and it‘s currently raining. I‘m going to curl up with a stack of books and not do ANYTHING today. 💙

Time to see what all the chatter is about

Nice prose but lacking on story. It seemed like such an interesting world the author created, too bad they didn‘t really explain any of it to us.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️This book was unlike anything I‘ve ever read & probably anything I‘ll ever read again. Gorgeous & weird. I don‘t know how to talk about it, but all I want to do is talk about it.
The fact that it was co-written by two authors is striking because it feels so distinct. And the fact that it‘s a novella is ridiculous because it feels so full.
It‘s not an easy read, but if you‘re up for it, I highly, highly recommend.

Wow.

Wow.

There are enemies-to-lovers romances and then there is... this.

Wow.

I admit the beginning was confusing, but once I got a bit further in, I was hooked! My favorite parts are the letters from Red to Blue and vice versa - the enemies to lovers trope in a whole different and unique way. I strive to have someone write to me the way they write to each other (swoon). My only small complaint - I would‘ve liked a little more backstory on how the war started, more origin story. The beautiful writing is just 🔥

Is this a perfect match or is this a perfect match? Currently reading and enjoying this one, should finish today! #pantone2023 #ALSpine @Sapphire @monalyisha @Clwojick

Two agents fighting a war through time and space begin exchanging letters and fall in love. 4⭐️

Finished up this epistolary novella about time-traveling female spies/assassins on different sides who fall in love during a war. I saw it on someone‘s best of 2023 on TikTok & was intrigued & my library had the e-book available last week. Beautiful writing & imagery & apparently much smarter than me as I am not sure I understood everything that happened in their somewhat cat-and-mouse relationship 🤷🏻‍♀️ but the evocative writing engaged me.

November was by and far my slowest month of the year. I was in a major reading slump.

#roundup #bookreport #nov2022 #2022 #audio #manga #romance #scifi #memoir #queer #libby #librarybooks #library

"I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You'll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to you."

(If you're interested in sapphic, spy enemies to lovers, epistolary romance, with a dash of time travel, this is the book for you.)

Beautifully lyrical, romantic and intricate. This epistolary love story, tells of two female time-traveling spies, communicating through letters as the ongoing war ravages their opposing sides. As I often do with this genre( very outside my comfort-zone) I find the world-building sci-fi bits more distracting than anything else. But the human connection shines here. The writing is really gorgeous, and in such a brief novella, so much is said.