The first half is sheer chaos, the second half does not redeem it

I had trouble finding my footing in this book initially. I get that it’s set in a different reality, but goodness…I needed a little more solid ground to fully appreciate it. As it was, it felt like diving into an ADHD and drug induced fever dream. Such an uncomfortable chaos in which the poeticism felt like empty ramblings, when it probably would have felt beautiful to me had the story been more anchored in some way.

The story is about two warring agents, traveling through time strands, shapeshifting, writing letters to one another. At about the halfway point I finally started to appreciate their letters. I liked that Red and Blue found red and blue colored things to call one another (Strawberry, Mood Indigo, etc.), but it continued to feel like the author was either unable to get half the story out of her brain and onto paper, or she meant to leave so many gaps to be filled in by the reader. I like neither scenario. I’m someone who sees story worlds in her mind while reading and with this story I was just missing too much to really get there. It was like watching a sci-fi movie blindfolded.

Had I rated this book based on its first half, it would have been 1 star. The second half redeemed it a little, but I still didn’t have any particular feelings about the characters (they felt like video game characters to me, not people), I didn’t enjoy the setting, and it just didn’t draw me in. Landing on 2.5 stars.