Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

117 reviews

sarahbobearah's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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: Complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Racism, Xenophobia, Murder

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Child death, Suicide

folieassdeux's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark reflective sad medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Police brutality, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship

Minor: Addiction, Bullying, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Slavery, Vomit, Trafficking, Sexual harassment, War

mld12's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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I've never read a longass book before and thought "yeah, it needed all those pages." But this one? YES. My only qualm is I wish it was clearer when the fact tidbits were made up or real. Amazing amazing, RF Kuang never misses. I couldn't read it in one go because it was SO MUCH to think about.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Murder, Abandonment, Deportation

Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual violence, Death of parent, Alcohol

raptorq's review against another edition

5.0

challenging 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: Complicated

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I would give this 10 stars if I could.

Frankly, required reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Moderate: Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, War, Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Body horror, Child death, Drug use, Gore, Sexual assault, Suicide, Religious bigotry

dragon8pet's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, Classism

Minor: Addiction, Child death

thegreatnoodles's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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A tremendously powerful and beautifully written book about the struggles of inequality, the crushing might of colonialism and the violent, all consuming nature of capitalism. All mixed together in an alternate history, magically laced story about academia and language.

I cannot express how much I enjoyed reading this book, and how strongly I felt for all of its characters.

The only fault I can think of is that this’ll make so many future reads pale in comparison to Babel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Genocide, Slavery, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Cultural appropriation, Deportation, Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Self harm, Fire/Fire injury

thelonelywizard's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

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i had a whole essay i was gonna type up in my notes app about the themes and the character parallels and how much i fucking hate letty (bc i rlly do hate that stupid white bitch), but the last page of robin’s story gutted me. victoire’s ending gave me some hope, but his gutted me.

idek what to say. I’ve watched him grow up since page one, and now…i want to hold ramy and robin and victoire so tight, i love them so much. they deserved so much better. 

will be thinking about this one for a while.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexual harassment

danielledeal's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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"Translation means doing violence unto the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign unintended eyes" 

I liked this book, but I didn't love it. At times it felt very repetitive; I don't know how many times the author needed to say "colonialism bad" in basically the same way; at a certain point it was no longer advancing the plot or contributing to character development. it felt like the author didn't trust the readers to come to any conclusions on their own - about Robin's morality or about the justification of the British empire,

about the justification of Hermes or Letty's betrayal

. The pacing picked up in a meaningful way toward the ending - which in turn left me feeling downtrodden and heavy. But still there is hope - "History isn't a premade tapestry that we've got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it." 

A note on the formatting -- this book contains a lot of footnotes (which I thought overall served the story well) but I read the Harper Voyager paperback version and because of the font and size I often had trouble seeing the footnote indicator ( * ) which made the reading experience a little choppy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Grief, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Classism

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail

salicer's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Gore, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Xenophobia, Colonisation, War

Minor: Child death

kgatz's review against another edition

4.75

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, War, Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Deportation