Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

10 reviews

lizzie24601's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

God, Natasha Pulley knows how to tell a story!!!!!! She uses the same trope in all of her books and I gobble it up every time! And as a fan of stories set on ships in the early 19th century, this hit the spot. I would read a whole series about Joe and Kite. I felt out of breath reading this because I was so excited to get to the next chapter. Ugh!! Incredible character building and a suspenseful relationship and plot. 

Half a star taken off only because the opening is so slow - until you get to part 3 and it takes OFF. If you haven't read a Natasha Pulley book before, read The Watchmaker of Filigree Street or The Bedlam Stacks before this one - they both are better introductions to her writing style since they start off a bit quicker and are written more chronologically. Then come back and enjoy this one. :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting and War

Moderate: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Murder, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Slavery

Minor: Death of parent, Self harm, Genocide, Sexism, Alcohol, and Blood

clarabooksit's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Animal cruelty, Violence, Murder, Mental illness, Death, Gun violence, War, Kidnapping, Sexism, and Animal death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Xenophobia, Blood, Colonisation, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Homophobia, Racism, and Suicide

bhelena's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.25

ultimately a gripping book i stayed up all night to finish, however there are a couple of things that stop me from rating it higher... i feel like i'm exactly the target audience of this novel, which is why   found it so frustrating. i've read most of pulley's books. to be fair, a good editor would have helped most of these but it seems like publishers don't care about that anymore.

1. a common issue in this author's writing but here perhaps the most egregious – characters just fail to react to life shattering events. in a way that doesn't read like prim upper-class manners or depressed apathy or resignation in the face of war. it just seems like oversight to add it in later.
2. several severe cases of natasha pulley sociopathic female side character we're meant to find sympathetic. iykyk.

agatha is the clear example but joe's rapist wife is not to be forgotten. her redeeming quality is supposed to be she's a career woman but i find that hard to sympathise with given how little she cares for her baby daughter, who she presumably wanted – given the aforementioned coercion. bad!

 
3.

kite throwing a young boy overboard to keep a secret seems genuinely a step too far and it's never later explained and/or grappled with. i can see the black sails inspiration here (i'm sure we all do) however the writing isn't up to par with that, sorry. i don't mean to imply i'm against morally gray characters but this just seems lazy and like the author herself didn't care to question it – which is a shame, because not grappling with that versus his deep affections seems very out of character for joe.

4.

the toddlers in the end. i'm sorry mrs pulley i support your ongoing gay parenting agenda HOWEVER i find it weird joe mourns lily so much but seemingly doesn't care that much for his brother and his wife ceasing to exist overnight. odd. also see previous point: personally i think him and missouri should remain childfree and help educate the war orphans on the ship. again sorry. but i find it odd how quickly joe adjusts to that given how loving and caring towards children he seems otherwise.

5. the representation here feels bridgertonesque.

apologies, may the next one be great!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Body horror, Slavery, Child death, Colonisation, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual violence and Xenophobia

dananana's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

THIS JUST REWIRED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Colonisation, Death, Blood, Gun violence, Violence, War, and Slavery

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcohol

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

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.

btrz7's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Slavery, and War

seanml's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This is most definitely one of if not the best books I’ve read all year. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started it, so I kept questioning myself “Is this horror?” “Is this romance?” There are few things I’ve read that allow the reader to sink into a scene as well as this does. Masterpiece. Missouri Kite is one of the best characters in literature. 10/10. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Self harm, Misogyny, and Slavery

Minor: Alcohol, Colonisation, Death of parent, Genocide, Sexism, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts