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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.
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
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