Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

809 reviews

adventurous challenging tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-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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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

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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challenging emotional 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: Complicated

I wasn’t really sure what I was going into when I picked this book up. 

It’s a rather heavy read and a lot of it reads like non-fiction. In some places it was slow and I think it could have been shorter, however the writing was incredible and it was an interesting read! 

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative tense medium-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: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective 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: Complicated

Phenomenol!

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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

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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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

"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. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging emotional 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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional funny 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: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings