4 Things You Can Try Now That You’ve Read THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR
Mabel - a podcast by Becca De La Rosa and Maybell Marten.
Anna Limón is a home help worker currently looking after the elderly Sally Martin. When Sally has a bizarre and frightening reaction to a box of letters Anna finds in her attic one day, Anna attempts to seek answers by contacting Sally’s only known living relative: Mabel Martin.
“A podcast about ghosts, family secrets, strange houses, and missed connections,” Mabel is a story that is difficult to describe, but one of the most important points is that the vast majority of it is an epistolary narrative between Anna and Mabel, just like how This Is How You Lose The Time War is an epistolary narrative between Red and Blue. It also has a very distinct writing style- dramatic, flowery, and a little bit intimidating. However, if you loved the writing style of TIHYLTTW, I personally think that Mabel is a perfect match for you.
And I’m not just saying that because Mabel is a story about two extremely overdramatic women who are somehow both frighteningly caustic yet almost adorably useless.
The Honey Month - a book by Amal El-Mohtar
I certainly hope I don’t have to tell you this, but Amal El-Mohtar is one of the authors of This Is How You Lose The Time War, and The Honey Month is a short book she wrote several years ago.
The Honey Month is almost more of an experiment than a book- in its introduction, a friend of El-Mohtar explains how she sent her several small samples of honey, leading El-Mohtar to use the gift as in a unique way. For one February, every day she used a different vial of honey as inspiration for a small piece of writing.
The Honey Month contains 28 short pieces of writing, poetry, prose, and some things in between. It’s a small book full of things with big impact, and contains the lyrical yet meaty writing I enjoyed from El-Mohtar in TIHYLTTW.
Otherside Picnic (裏世界ピクニック) - A series of novels by Iori Miyazawa (illustrated by Shirakaba)
College sophomore Sorawo Kamikoshi longs to find an escape from other people, and in trying to find it discovers the Otherside, a strangely beautiful yet unfathomably dangerous parallel world inhabited by the-once-fictional creatures she knows from net lore. She also meets Toriko Nishina, another young woman with a knowledge of firearms and a desire to find her missing mentor. Together, these two girls explore the Otherside and find themselves changing little by little, both due to their adventures, but also due to their relationship with each other.
If you know me you probably aren’t surprised at this reccomendation. Otherside Picnic is a truly odd beast- it’s sci-fi, it’s horror, it’s comedy, it’s yuri. It’s about trauma, it’s about Japanese creepypasta, it’s about useless lesbians, and it’s about how the scariest thing of all is being vulnerable with another human being. I think fans of This Is How You Lose The Time War will enjoy it- Otherside Picnic’s writing style will likely feel almost spartan compared to TIHYLTTW, but in my opinion there’s a similar level of poetry in it. There’s also a similar level of women who are “badass” yet kind of messes. You’ve heard of “Enemies to Lovers,” get ready for “Accomplices to Lovers”!
(there’s also a manga adaptation by Eita Mizuno, as well as an anime adaptation directed by Takuya Sato)
The Handmaiden (아가씨) - a movie directed by Park Chan-wook (written by Park and Chung Seo-kyung, based on the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters)
In Japan-occupied Korea, the pickpocket Sook-hee is recruited by a con-man to aide him in his scam of a Japanese heiress, Lady Hideko. While the con-man poses as “Count Fujiwara” and woos Hideko, Sook-hee will play the part of her maid and subtly push the heiress towards him. But as time passes, Sook-hee begins to realize there are things occuring in the mansion that are even more sinister than her and the Count’s scheme, and there is much, much more to Hideko than meets the eye.
This is a list of recommendations for “people who have finished “This Is How You Lose The Time War,” but I try to recommend The Handmaiden to as many people as I possibly can. I’ve described it in the past as the cinematic equivalent of running a marathon: with a 144 minute runtime full of gorgeous direction and set design, dark machinations, twisted yet romantic writing, often troubling themes, and so, so many plot twists, it’s a movie that nearly feels like too much of a good thing. But for fans of TIHYLTTW, I’m sure what will intrigue you most is the relationship between the two main characters, one so complicated that “Enemies to Lovers” can’t hope to capture the roiling feelings of pity, guilt, hatred, desire, annoyance, sympathy, and everything in between.
It’s also just really hot.
The Handmaiden is a movie that is best enjoyed going in knowing as little as possible. That said, it is also a story with dark and often upsetting themes that are absolutely crucial to its narrative. If you are concerned about that statement, I reccomend looking at the movies’ entry on DoesTheDogDie, which I have looked at and found to be a pretty comprehesive list of content warnings that can be examined in a way that doesn’t spoil the twists of the story.
Fingersmith - a novel by Sarah Waters
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I swear I’m going to get around to it!! I can’t technically recommend the book that inspired The Handmaiden since I haven’t read it yet, but I have at least one friend whose opinion I trust who sings its praises, so it’s good enough for me. Besides, if the recent popularity of This Is How You Lose The Time War has showed us anything, it’s that people constantly crave stories about complicated women, so it certainly can’t hurt, right?
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