Reviews

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

smithel's review against another edition

5.0

This is the story of Joe Tournier, who suddenly finds himself at Gare du Roi in Londres, with no memory at all of who he is and where he’d come from. His only clue to his past comes in the form of a postcard that had been posted from a Scottish lighthouse almost a hundred years previously and a vague recollection of a man waiting for him on an island. As with all of Natasha Pulley’s books, reading this was an intense experience, a battle between not being able to put it down and dreading finishing it and having to say goodbye characters. It’s the tender and traumatic time travel napoleonic wars romance I never knew I needed.

s_ja's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

sashahc's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

#Book rec!  I’m working my way through Natasha Pulley’s books and just read “The Kingdoms.”  Intense, tragic, beautiful, and mysterious.  It’s got time travel from an alternate past to an other more distant alternate past.  And the horrors of war and identity and trauma and family (blood and chosen).  And queerness.  I’ll be chewing on it for a while.

kepheus's review against another edition

2.0

DNF

If you like plodding story and milquetoast characters, by all means. Maybe things pick up but, judging by the other reviewers, not enough for me to warrant spending more time on it.

kikkilux's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

toreypickard's review against another edition

3.0

I loved all the *ideas* of this one (time travel, alternate history, mystery, little romance) but it just didn’t execute them nearly as well as I was hoping. And maybe I’m dense, but I just couldn’t follow all the time jumps. Sometimes I’d be several minutes in without realizing we were back on another timeline, which made for a confusing reading experience.

jbaltsar's review against another edition

2.0

Die Prämisse klang cool: eine alternative Geschichte, in der Frankreich den napoleonischen Krieg gewonnen hat, Zeitreisen, Segelschiffe, Manipulationen der Vergangenheit um die Zukunft zu retten - wow!
Irgendwann nach ein paar zehn Seiten begann mich die Autorin aber zu verlieren, und die zweite Hälfte habe ich nur diagonal gelesen.
Es begann damit, dass mehrmals der Einsatz von chain shot...

mgwuh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Spoiler

IF YOUR STORY DEPENDS ON MISCOMMUNICATION IT'S DUMB BULLSHIT AND I HATE YOU

Pulley is an excellent world builder and writes delicious characters. Her best ones are her likeable, demented ones. However,

Spoiler

she leans too heavily, here and elsewhere, on miscommunication borne of self loathing. Maybe a bit of it works,  but the extents used here were unacceptable. At some point, belief shatters under the weight of frustration.

chasingholden's review against another edition

I started off really in to but it's sort of drifting into something that cant hold my attention. will likely retry at a later date

heathers_books's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25