A review by ruthorfiction
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

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

3.75

This book models a goddamn sine wave (yes, ha ha. I will say I did love the math) from start to finish. I cannot make up my mind how I felt about it; at times I was absolutely enthralled and at other times I wanted to throw it into a river and never pick it up again.

It suffers a little from “just TELL him the TRUTH, stupid” syndrome but if you can get past that I do think Pulley handles the time travel and alternate histories/futures stuff really well. I’d love to see whatever nightmare of a timeline she had while writing this because, genuinely, what a herculean effort.

However! We are back at the true trough of the sine wave which is that both of the main characters (and many of the sides!) made me want to shout “why would you DO that??” roughly once every five chapters. I love an unhinged little weirdo as much as next person but my god. None of these people ever had hinges in the first place.

Yes, it was fun to see Joe make assumptions about Kite’s horrible seeming actions that then turn out to be reasonably justified. We spend half the book being shown that Kite is not really a monster, he’s just deeply traumatized and pragmatic and banging around inside his own skull weeping, EXCEPT then the justification for the one action Kite takes that really does make him a monster is… “it would make it harder for me to convince this man who hates me to help us”. (And help them do something I’m not really convinced Kite even wants? Are we supposed to think England winning is the good outcome because at least they outlawed slavery? Because it was their home in the first place? Because I’m mostly a dumb american but I feel like the Irish and Scotish and Welsh might have something to say about that. Whatever. An empire’s an empire, I guess.)

Anyway. I want to clamp this book between my teeth and shake it like a dog and also never think of it again. Pulley is a good writer and this book was enthralling to the point that even though it baffled me and I’m not sure I liked it I still finished. I don’t know how to end this except to say—
justice for Fred
.
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