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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
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:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
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:
No
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
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:
No
Once again Natasha Pulley has crafted a beautiful story with emotionally rich and vibrant characters, all with a twist that is so reminiscent of all of her work.
There were a few times where I felt that characters were being very relaxed over utterly impossible situations, but other than that slight push on the limits of my credulity, I loved it.
There were a few times where I felt that characters were being very relaxed over utterly impossible situations, but other than that slight push on the limits of my credulity, I loved it.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
coming off of another time travel book, this was sooooo so interesting and very well put together. this concept of time traveling was very unique and not complicated to follow at all or any of the repercussions either which is very nice for a story like this. i found myself loving the prose and flying through pages and chapters even at the beginning. what started off as a cool alternate reality with lots of small hints and things to confuse you as a reader changed so much into a small journey for our MC. i won’t talk about spoilers but there’s a beautiful relationship in this that I will definitely think about for a while. it was really organic throughout everything that was going on and wow i really enjoyed this book. i was on the edge of a 3.5 and a 4 but when i finished chapter 49 i knew i had to give it a 5. i will definitely be reading more Pulley soon and even though my kind of books have always been bigger epics and trilogies, i found myself enthralled by this story and not being able to put it down. this is definitely in my top 5 this year as of rn
adventurous
medium-paced
Joe is an amnesiac; his first ever memory is of him stepping off a train in French-occupied London in 1901, aged in his forties. All he remembers is a name and an impression of a woman called Madeline. The memories never return, but soon a postcard arrives from 100 years ago with an image of a lighthouse that has only just finished construction, signed "M". Seeking answers, Joe travels to the lighthouse and finds a rift in time that flings him back almost 100 years into the depths of the Napoleonic wars.
The first section of this book was promising. Joe, while perhaps a little bland and mild mannered for a protagonist, was likeable enough, and there was real suspense and mystery around his amnesia. There was a placid morosity to Joe's life, which didn't quite fit him right, and the lighthouse was wonderfully atmospheric.
It's worth noting there were issues with the book up to this point. As discussed, Joe's personality is somewhat blank, the pitiably small chapters disrupted the flow, and the writing was overly plain and simple, moving through events too quickly with too little description. But on balance, a good book. Then Joe slips through the time rift, is kidnapped by a ship's captain named Kite, and embarks on what I can best describe as a naval road trip to Edinburgh where he will be forced to divulge future technologies for the British to use against the French.
It's at this point that I became frustrated with Joe, who is exceedingly passive. He barely registers any complaint about being kidnapped and it doesn't seem to affect him emotionally. He never thinks about escape, he is not angry with Kite for kidnapping him, and he only thinks about how he doesn't want to do this every 70 or so pages. The sparseness of Pulley's writing and the way events are sped through so quickly become a serious issue; there is very little in this book that has emotional resonance, and huge, traumatic, or highly important events are given such little emphasis I was left wondering if I'd somehow misread things. Scene setting is atrocious and it's hard to ever fully understand what the various settings look like or how certain action is unfolding, and as the second half of the book bounces between different times with no rhyme or reason, this becomes a serious issue. The ship makes no real sense and many of the locations never feel totally grounded. Pulley just doesn't really seem to care about creating a historical or naval atmosphere and they very much feel like plot devices more than they do settings. Multiple times I found myself comparing this book to the concreteness of the seafaring world of The Bone Ships, which blew this book completely out of the water in comparison.
Then we have Kite and the other characters. Kite seems to be written as a sexy sad boy and his multiple murders of innocent people on more or less a whim on his part, with no remorse, are meant to be excusable because he had a sad childhood. These murders are never really addressed; Joe reflects on them a handful of times, but more or less forgets about them within a couple of pages. Kite and Joe actually have surprisingly little interaction and when they do, it's usually just for Kite to insult, threaten or intimidate Joe. I cannot for the life of me see what Joe likes about Kite; all we know about him is that he had a bad childhood, doesn't talk much, and murders children.
Three of the four adult women in this book are basically the same character: a level-headed, no-nonsense woman rolling her eyes at the patriarchy, in a highly unlikely role in society for the time. The fourth is one we're meant to dislike.By the end of the book, three of the women are dead in addition to Joe's daughter. The only one alive is the one with the smallest role and least relevance to the plot. They seem to exist mostly so that they can die. Agatha's death was particularly egregious, being so pointless that the fact she was dead only came up once in the entire second half of the book and had absolutely no impact on the characters.
This story could have been handled far better in the hands of a more skilled writer, because the plot, while nothing groundbreaking, is pretty good. Time travelling is by its nature paradoxical, so the time travel rules made little sense, but the rules were consistent. Many aspects of the plot and time travel mysteries are able to be worked out in advance, but this isn't something that I see as a flaw; I think that the clues were placed into the novel in a way that made a lot of sense for the story and built naturally, and some mysteries are less easily solved than others. It was meticulously and cleverly constructed, but the writing simply came nowhere near doing it justice.
However, it did fall apart again at the end for me. Beyond the fact I dislike Kite and Joe, the ending was distastefully neat.Joe's brother and sister-in-law disappear/die early due to the consequences of someone's crossing the time rift and the butterfly effect, leaving Joe to adopt their children to replace his dead daughter and live happily ever after with Kite. It's worth remembering Alice, his sister-in-law, was constructed as an unlikeable character so we don't care that she's dead, and the brother was dead in the original timeline so we also do not care about him because we don't know him. It was a cheap way to give Joe free kids and a white picket fence.
The first section of this book was promising. Joe, while perhaps a little bland and mild mannered for a protagonist, was likeable enough, and there was real suspense and mystery around his amnesia. There was a placid morosity to Joe's life, which didn't quite fit him right, and the lighthouse was wonderfully atmospheric.
It's worth noting there were issues with the book up to this point. As discussed, Joe's personality is somewhat blank, the pitiably small chapters disrupted the flow, and the writing was overly plain and simple, moving through events too quickly with too little description. But on balance, a good book. Then Joe slips through the time rift, is kidnapped by a ship's captain named Kite, and embarks on what I can best describe as a naval road trip to Edinburgh where he will be forced to divulge future technologies for the British to use against the French.
It's at this point that I became frustrated with Joe, who is exceedingly passive. He barely registers any complaint about being kidnapped and it doesn't seem to affect him emotionally. He never thinks about escape, he is not angry with Kite for kidnapping him, and he only thinks about how he doesn't want to do this every 70 or so pages. The sparseness of Pulley's writing and the way events are sped through so quickly become a serious issue; there is very little in this book that has emotional resonance, and huge, traumatic, or highly important events are given such little emphasis I was left wondering if I'd somehow misread things. Scene setting is atrocious and it's hard to ever fully understand what the various settings look like or how certain action is unfolding, and as the second half of the book bounces between different times with no rhyme or reason, this becomes a serious issue. The ship makes no real sense and many of the locations never feel totally grounded. Pulley just doesn't really seem to care about creating a historical or naval atmosphere and they very much feel like plot devices more than they do settings. Multiple times I found myself comparing this book to the concreteness of the seafaring world of The Bone Ships, which blew this book completely out of the water in comparison.
Then we have Kite and the other characters. Kite seems to be written as a sexy sad boy and his multiple murders of innocent people on more or less a whim on his part, with no remorse, are meant to be excusable because he had a sad childhood. These murders are never really addressed; Joe reflects on them a handful of times, but more or less forgets about them within a couple of pages. Kite and Joe actually have surprisingly little interaction and when they do, it's usually just for Kite to insult, threaten or intimidate Joe. I cannot for the life of me see what Joe likes about Kite; all we know about him is that he had a bad childhood, doesn't talk much, and murders children.
Three of the four adult women in this book are basically the same character: a level-headed, no-nonsense woman rolling her eyes at the patriarchy, in a highly unlikely role in society for the time. The fourth is one we're meant to dislike.
This story could have been handled far better in the hands of a more skilled writer, because the plot, while nothing groundbreaking, is pretty good. Time travelling is by its nature paradoxical, so the time travel rules made little sense, but the rules were consistent. Many aspects of the plot and time travel mysteries are able to be worked out in advance, but this isn't something that I see as a flaw; I think that the clues were placed into the novel in a way that made a lot of sense for the story and built naturally, and some mysteries are less easily solved than others. It was meticulously and cleverly constructed, but the writing simply came nowhere near doing it justice.
However, it did fall apart again at the end for me. Beyond the fact I dislike Kite and Joe, the ending was distastefully neat.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
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
do you ever repeatedly lose your memory and sense of self but still keep finding your way back to the man you love? across different timelines even? mein gott. i need to like. marinate in this one for a bit.
June 2025 reread : Missouri Kite Missouri Kite Missouri Kite Missouri Kite
January 2024 reread: nothing to add it's still bad for my heart
October 2023 reread: still insane
February 2023 reread: I do not have any thoughts to share I just wanted to say I am currently Going Through It my guys.
Already loved it the first time and enjoyed this reread even more, this book cannot be real help me.
Also Missouri Kite my little meow meow.
January 2024 reread: nothing to add it's still bad for my heart
October 2023 reread: still insane
February 2023 reread: I do not have any thoughts to share I just wanted to say I am currently Going Through It my guys.
Already loved it the first time and enjoyed this reread even more, this book cannot be real help me.
Also Missouri Kite my little meow meow.
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read the first half a little too slowly because by the time I got to the end of the book there were some things that were confusing just because it had been a while. But otherwise it was really interesting and immersive. There is a definite mystery element that you have to pay attention to, but it's kind of a quiet book. I always love sliding door kinds of books where people make different choices and it causes different outcomes, but this is a different twist where world history is drastically altered. I enjoyed it, but it won't be a good fit for everyone.
Mom should know: some language and a (tame) LGBTQ relationship.
Mom should know: some language and a (tame) LGBTQ relationship.