The Kingdoms, by Natasha Pulley

Oh boy. Really not sure what to think about this one. There are many things about it that are brilliantly done, and up to halfway through the book I was absolutely in love with the book and the things it was doing. It's a historical fiction involving alternate history and time travel, and the way Pulley introduces this alternate world to the reader is beautifully done, and then the narrative kept on going to wilder and weirder places than I was expecting and I was loving every minute of it, and loving everything about these sad broken people who had been traumatized by war and by slavery. (and it does SUCH a good job of making it clear how horrible naval battles really were, instead of glorifying them the way historical fiction often seems to!) I especially loved the horrible painful sibling bond between Agatha and Kite, the way they've immeasurably hurt each other even though they love each other, or even because they love each other.

However. The emotional weight given to various aspects of the narrative seemed off to me, in places, and it meant that the second half of the book just started feeling more and more wrong to me. ( cut for spoilers )