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esseastri 's review for:
The Kingdoms
by Natasha Pulley
I'm just supposed to distill all these gigantic emotions into some kind of review, huh?
I've very rarely met books that were written specifically for me--there are a handful, yes, and I will be very glad to have this book join their ranks.
This book is not for everyone. It's...complicated and horrible and aching, it's full of sharp edges and burn scars and murder, it's about history and love and what those two concepts do to people. It's about ships. And telegraphs. Lighthouses and time travel. Tortoises. Abuse and the decisions that lead to it. There are a lot of reasons why people will not like this book.
But, oh, oh, this book was written for me. Elegiac, liminal, fragile, aching. This book hurts but in such a good way. A spooling, non-linear narrative, that should be tangled and unparseable, but is instead clever and slowly unwinding until you understand the heart. Characters who are brittle and fragile as glass, complex and unthinkingly brave. Time travel with consequences, messy and completely probable alternate history, a slow-burn of a romance that is absolutely devastating and somehow perfect.
This book is not for everyone. But this book is for me. And I sincerely thank the author for giving it to me.
I've very rarely met books that were written specifically for me--there are a handful, yes, and I will be very glad to have this book join their ranks.
This book is not for everyone. It's...complicated and horrible and aching, it's full of sharp edges and burn scars and murder, it's about history and love and what those two concepts do to people. It's about ships. And telegraphs. Lighthouses and time travel. Tortoises. Abuse and the decisions that lead to it. There are a lot of reasons why people will not like this book.
But, oh, oh, this book was written for me. Elegiac, liminal, fragile, aching. This book hurts but in such a good way. A spooling, non-linear narrative, that should be tangled and unparseable, but is instead clever and slowly unwinding until you understand the heart. Characters who are brittle and fragile as glass, complex and unthinkingly brave. Time travel with consequences, messy and completely probable alternate history, a slow-burn of a romance that is absolutely devastating and somehow perfect.
This book is not for everyone. But this book is for me. And I sincerely thank the author for giving it to me.