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Oct 18, 2019forbesrachel rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Theirs is a tale that braids itself through time, worlds, and genres. Red fights for the future of the technological Agency. Blue fights for the future of the naturalistic Garden. Both agents have won their side great victories, and, have foiled the other's plans. In their centuries long struggle, they have left their marks, and finally noticed each other. Then a letter, a temptation, starts them on an entirely unexpected path. Writers El-Mohtar and Gladstone swap back and forth between the covert operations of the two characters (told in third person), and the precipitating letters (told in epistolary form). Their two leads dance, first in a battle between worthy rivals, before developing into something more intimate. Their love is a dangerous one though, and the climax revolves around their fate. But it isn't that which so grasps at you. It is the two who change because of each other, and the lyrical language. This story has a sci-fi backdrop with many wondrous things scattered throughout alternate timelines called Strands. The characters are not exactly human either, and because nothing specifies the gender of Red or Blue, even though they both use the "she/her" pronoun, you are left to define it yourself. However, the book has a literary form. An elegance from what it spends time describing; using imagery, and analogies to create emotional resonance within such a brief page span. Many will simply label this as sci-fi, when it is actually a love letter to love that transcends boundaries.