urwa's Reviews > The Kingdoms

All the stars ! 🌟⭐⭐

Dearest Joe,
Come home, if you remember.
-M

God, this book wrecked me. I am a pool of tears and a cloud of emotions to jumbled up to separate. A mysterious postcard from 90 years ago and the memory of a man waiting by the sea.
Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms is my first book by this author. I went into it expecting a scifi timey-wimey book with lots of mind fuckery. Except, this turned out to be something else entirely. After I finished this book, my heart felt so big and I felt so soft and teary-eyed. There was this intense emotion, that I couldn't describe. The only thing I could do was scream about this book to everyone who came within a 10-foot radius.

The Kingdoms starts off with our main character, Joe, stepping off a train and having no memory from before that. Eventually, he remembers the name of a woman called Madeline, and the glimpses of a man waiting for him by the sea. He has a mysterious postcard with an even more mysterious note, with the picture of a lighthouse. The book follows Joe as he tries to make sense of the life he forgot while juggling the new life thrust upon him.

The Kingdoms is a love story that spans 100s of years. It's about if a person is willing to change Time for someone they love. It's Your Name meets The Time Traveller's Wife with the emotions of the best Doctor Who episodes. My favorite thing about this book, and the reason why I am still such a sobbing mess as I write this review, is the way the author invoked this feeling of heartbreak and melancholy throughout the story. Maybe it had something to do with amnesiacs. Characters who have lost their memories always cause a special kind of sad vibe. But that feeling throughout the book made it such a memorable book, despite the fact that it twisted my heart, and broke me down.

He had a strong sense that he’d lost something important, but he couldn’t think what it was.

As a reader, a lot of the things come clearer before the character realizes what's going on. That's because we get some other POVs as well. While some readers will feel like that makes the plot predictable and that the story loses its luster, I felt the complete opposite. The theatrical irony, of the reader understanding what's actually at play, before it dawns on the main character, is part of the appeal of this book. Or maybe I'm just a masochist going through PMS and digged the angst.

It was good to know he did have a backbone, after two years feeling sure he was an invertebrate.

I loved the characters. Both, Joe and Kite, were such interesting characters, with so much to them. Extremely different from each other, their chemistry was amazing from the first scene. I couldn't help thinking they were soulmates the moment they met, and that was the moment I knew that I was a goner for this ship (pun intended). Joe is such a sweetheart, that I just wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and cuddle him. yes, I know he is a 40 something-year-old man Even in the face of so much violence and cruelty, he never stops being kind. I loved that about him, it was a nod from a fellow Hufflepuff to another.

He would grow up to be honorable, and chivalrous. He would hesitate in the face of a desperate man aiming a gun at him because he would feel too much sympathy. The instinct to be kind, and to negotiate, would slow down the instinct to defend himself. He would hesitate, and he would be shot.

Despite his cold and tough exterior, I adored my tsundere, Missouri Kite ❤. Pulley did a fantastic job of slowly peeling away the many layers to such a well-constructed character. Along with Joe, the reader is intrigued by Kite's troubled history, and eventually, comes to embrace him after learning about the stuff that shaped him into the man he ultimately became.

Can I just say how happy it makes me, when a book set in the 17th and 18th centuries, gives a happily-ever-after to a gay couple? It so rarely happens, and I was so glad Pulley didn't go down the #tragicgays trope. I love me my gay pirate dads :')

I haven't read any of Natasha Pulley's other books, but if they are as good as The Kingdoms, then I will happily devour her work. The Kingdoms was a feel-good Achillean romance, in which our characters go above and beyond to be with their loved ones, damn timelines, and alternate histories. Whether it will take a hundred years, or three different timelines, the characters never give up on their love for each other.

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My heart is full, I am legit tearing up over how good this book was 😭😭. RTC