Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

743 reviews

laurawho's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Colonisation, Police brutality, Suicide, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Murder, Racial slurs, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, Death, Sexism, War, Child abuse, and Misogyny

Minor: Slavery and Drug use

chelseaisreading's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

It is rare to read a book and just be in sheer awe of the author’s brilliance, but Babel is one such book. The intricate layers of history, language study, and colonial critique packed into this story following these four academics is nothing short of extraordinary. I find reading this book is timely, but realize that’s the point—these power struggles and structures are at the heart of most conflict we see throughout the modern world. Can you love something knowing what it is built upon? Can we make a difference? Is there a point in trying? In trying to translate that which can’t be described exactly in another language?
This one has me full of tears and thoughts.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Death of parent, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Colonisation, Death, Murder, Racism, Toxic friendship, and Xenophobia

Minor: War

bronzel's review against another edition

Too slow for me, I tried very hard to engage but it just wasn’t doing it for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Racism, Child abuse, and Racial slurs

oceanelle's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative 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? Yes

5.0

Absolutely fucking brilliant. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Xenophobia, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Suicide, Classism, Murder, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, and Physical abuse

nicoles_reading_corner's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Colonisation, and Violence

Moderate: Slavery, Violence, War, Racial slurs, and Death of parent

isaaceelliot's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, War, Islamophobia, Death of parent, Gun violence, Racism, Sexism, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Slavery, Child abuse, and Colonisation

dmteralie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Classism, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Murder, Emotional abuse, Colonisation, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Slavery

ericadawson's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I'd give it 4.9 if I could. Explanation below:

People like to pull Playfair's quote about the violence and betrayal of translation from the text and present it as one of the most gut-wrenching lines in the entire novel. In fact, there are many such lines across many contexts. If I went through Babel now to put them all here, I'd never stop. I may as well quote the whole book. 

Babel is about a a young, half-Chinese, half-English man named Robin Swift as he grapples with his role in support Britain's colonial Empire in the 1830s. The lynchpin for all of England's dealings is silver, imbued with the magical and abstract powers of the tongue via the powerful spaces between translation. 

Babel has almost everything for me. I love all of the characters. The "math" of the arcs--that is, why anyone one character says or does anything at any give time--makes perfect sense. It's not predictable; simply logical. I could never hate Robin or Victoire or Letty for their initial love of Babel. I couldn't blame Ramy for anything he did or said. Letty's white feminism, white supremancy, and willfully ignorant understanding of the world was on point until it got tiresome. 

That is where I have to shave off a portion of a point, unfortunately. Letty's point as a character was hammered home until the wood was dented and the head was flying off the hammer. While I can understand that narrative math of Robin, Ramy, and Victoire explaining to Letty over and over how hard it is to be non-white in a fundamentally white supremacist insitution, white supremacist land--at a point, I grew patient with them. Especially after

Letty shoots Ramy in a classic case of a white woman's sexual entitlement to a brown man ending in violence

, I truly could not wrap my head around why they bothered speaking to her again, after that. 

Another portion of a point gets shaved off for Victoire's character. I loved her, I do, I just wish she stood out more from the beginning. I loved her especially in the end, with how her character was set up against Robin's and how they played off each other's strengths and weaknesses. 

Yet another portion of a point for the pacing of the ending in general. It was slow for me. There were two supposed twists/keys to success that I was waiting for the characters to remember and use, which made me get impatient. 

None of these things overall seriously detracts from my star-point rating for Babel. It was a lovely book. The prose was straightforward without being plain, and often punched me in the gut (in a good way). The concept was amazing, and the entire plot was clearly well-researched. I loved the footnotes. I loved everything. Highly recommended. If there was top-shelf wine for books, Babel would be up there.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Violence, Racial slurs, Classism, and Blood

Moderate: Colonisation, Murder, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Addiction

lucyatoz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Babel by R.F.Kuang is a brilliant read although it does challenge and engage you in so many disparate themes of race, class, colonialism, slavery,  violence and  exploitation of the many by the few. 

It tells the story of four young adults, Robin, Victoire, Ramy and Lettie, as they come together as the 1st year cohort at the Oxford University's Royal Institute of Translation in 1836, as they each have amazing talents when it comes to learning languages that can be used for the benefit of the British Empire, regardless of the cost for them and those they love and care about. 

It is a big and  ambitious novel tackling big topics although it starts off quite slowly, but when the group come together, the action starts apace and takes you on a fantastical journey, which, at times, I could not tell was real or imaginary.  

I borrowed a copy of this book from Taunton Library and listened to it on BorrowBox. I read this for prompt 26, hybrid genre, for the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge 2024. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Gore, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Gun violence, Murder, Misogyny, Racism, Grief, Toxic friendship, Death, Violence, and Classism

Moderate: War, Pandemic/Epidemic, Vomit, and Blood

awildpreciouslife's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The particular itch this scratches in my brain. If you like dark academia, alternative histories, non white leading casts, and linguistics -- this is also for you!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation

Moderate: Violence, Death of parent, War, Xenophobia, and Murder