Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

13 reviews

cleot's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Violence

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Self harm, Slavery, Animal death, Torture, Death, and War

maeverose's review against another edition

4.0

This would be a solid 5 stars if it weren’t for one  thing that rubbed me the wrong way…

That  being the way Kite murdered Frank and everyone just kinda forgot about it. Like that made him irredeemable to me. I would’ve loved the whole romance plot line and been totally happy with the ending if it weren’t for that one thing. If the author is autistic I’d be willing to look past it, even though I still think it was an odd choice, but if she’s allistic that gives me the ick. The way he was physically restrained, slapped and literally murdered while having a meltdown? Just to keep Joe from remembering who he was. That is not justified on Kite’s part. At all. And Joe just seemingly forgets about it after a while??

I also didn’t love some of the ways the author described Kite’s scarring and Clay’s disfigurement and ‘childlike’ behavior from his trauma. It could just be Joe’s/Kite’s thoughts not the author’s, but it bothered me a bit. It wasn’t horrible though.

Otherwise I really liked this book. I heard someone suggest it as a book similar to The Binding (which I also liked until I found out the author was a terf), and this definitely has a similar feel to The Binding, though a pretty different plot. I knew very little going in and I think that’s the best way to read it. Despite how mostly negative this review is I would recommend this if the synopsis sounds intriguing. Just check content warnings!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, War, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Body shaming, Misogyny, Rape, Child abuse, Gore, Medical content, and Sexual content

Minor: Racism, Ableism, and Fatphobia

graphic: Amnesia, Intrusive Thoughts, minor: Eugenics

wardenred's review

challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

It’s your life too; you might like to start giving a fuck what happens in it.

To be honest, I was enjoying this book a lot more before the story actually started. There was that long, slow beginning about the amnesiac protagonist adjusting to a life that didn't feel like his own, and there were so many interesting, sometimes beautifully nebulous things hinted at. The mysterious "epilepsy" epidemics, the weird alternate England occupied by France. Finally, Joe's trip to that weird lighthouse on the frozen edge of the world, the tortoises in the tavern, the coming of winter from the sea. The lighthouse parts were my absolute favorite. I was looking forward to just reading an entire book about lighthouse weirdness.

But then the entire time traveling plot started unfolding, and it was all dimension hopping and murders and naval warfare and convoluted politics. The way it was all laid out, with the random switching of POVs and times, just made my head ache. On top of that, once all that action started, I realized there wasn't a single character I could root for. I simply disliked them all. Even Joe, who'd had my sympathy in the earlier chapters.

I guess The Half-Life of Valery K was a fluke, and Natasha Pulley really isn't an author for me...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Child death, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Slavery

augustar14's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Blood, Colonisation, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Murder, War, Grief, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Death of parent, Racism, and Sexism

cameronreads's review against another edition

4.0

I really enjoyed this book. I think the concept is so interesting and gripping, and I was fully invested the whole time either trying to figure out what on earth was going on or whether my theories were right. I think it was predictable in a way that felt like everything satisfyingly coming into place, with revelations slowly dawning on me allowing for the perfect confirming reveal. I think the characters were compelling and well written, and the book seemed very well research (not that I know anything about history). 

Two half stars were taken off for me - one because the way that time travel was written, although the right way to make the story work, is the one way I hate for time travel to be written. I love it when time travel is more along the lines of what David Lewis theorised as possible, rather than time travellers having the ability to change the future from the past etc. Still, it made for the right kind of story, so only half a star off for that. A second half star off because I wanted just a bit more feeling out of the characters. I think the emotions they were feeling here were so big that they needed a bit more description or emphasis. I wanted to feel the emotions with the characters, and I just didn't really. Mostly I wanted to see more passion out of the main relationship in here, I think just a little more development could have really added to the impact. 

Still, I loved this so much more than I expected to, and I would 100% recommend. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Slavery, Violence, War, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, and Gore

Moderate: Misogyny, Self harm, Gun violence, Cursing, Colonisation, and Grief

Minor: Suicide, Alcohol, Torture, and Vomit

tamara_joy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Classism, Gore, Slavery, Gun violence, Colonisation, and Grief

Minor: Abandonment, Murder, Alcohol, and Animal death

kaliko's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Rape and Self harm

cocacolor's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.5

A brisk, clever time-traveling, alternate-dimension-hopping adventure. The characters are immediately likeable and memorable, although they don't have much interiority;

even after Joe/Jem regains all his memories, it's difficult to place his relationship with Kite in the context of his marriages to Alice / Madeleine, and what Agatha and Jem also felt for each other is a mystery

. Pulley's style is delightful, lyrical and lucid at the same time. It feels strange to be rooting for the British Navy, here buckling under French colonialism; on the one hand, a keen attention to historical detail is counterbalanced by the narrow scope of telling a story of British soldiers fighting French occupation with barely a mention of Britain's own empire. I'm still discontented with the way some threads are tied up:

When does Kite reckon with the consequences of killing a teenage boy? A freak change killing off Toby and Alice and dropping children into Kite and Joe's laps seems like a cop-out way to give them a nuclear family.

But overall, a thrilling tale with immediate, powerful characters that turns on the tropes of amnesia and the horrors of war.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, War, Colonisation, Animal death, Death, Hate crime, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Confinement, Racism, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Suicide, Blood, Child death, Classism, Homophobia, Physical abuse, and Sexism

Minor: Alcohol and Genocide

On rape:

though the narrative seems to acknowledge that the main character is forced into sex by his wife, it stops short of condemning her.

On racism:

The aforementioned wife is one of the only Black characters in the novel, and also killed off in order to give the white and white-passing main couple her children.

anxiousnachos's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I don’t think I have the words for this review. This was absolutely exquisite, this *destroyed* me. It’s one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever read, I just immediately want to reread. The moment everything kind of clicks together and you realise what happened is soul shattering. It was stunning. How can your heart not break into a million pieces at this quote: 

“You’re my family! You were family before any of them. I’ve missed you even when I didn’t remember you. Everything I’ve done since losing you has been about getting back to you.”

Please excuse me whilst I go scream.

Content warnings: slavery, graphic depictions of war, graphic depictions of blood/gore, epilepsy, amnesia, murder, violence, child death, burn injury, lashing injury, physical abuse, imprisonment, rape 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, and War

Moderate: Confinement, Rape, and Slavery

gee_l_reads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, War, Gore, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, and Fire/Fire injury