Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

27 reviews

niceonehros's review against another edition

While I enjoyed the treatment of colonialism I didn't have the stomach for the scenes where Robin is beaten by the Professor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

spineofthesaurus's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Child death, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Vomit, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, and Deportation

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Excrement, and Car accident

notthatcosta's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.75

First and foremost I have respect for R.F. Kuang’s ambition in building this world. The first section ended up being my favourite of all, mostly because its main focus was on establishing the complex parallel universe in which this world exists.

However, the middle section loses a lot of steam for me and ended up spending far too long hovering over tired literary tropes before kicking back into gear for the ending, which was saved by an excellent epilogue. What took me out of the book was how it sometimes directly placed itself within the 1800s in every sense and other times featured dialogue that felt like contemporary Twitter discourse about colonialism. 

Tonally the book was confusing, the motivations for the characters were oftentimes unclear. While I think it had a lot of potential, for the most part that wasn’t realised.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

alisonvh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-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

This book is so good and so well written! Although my first instinct is to say the author doesn’t give people enough credit for their capacity for empathy, I can’t deny that white people don’t have a great track record when it comes to empathy for people of color. In that way the book is similar to Power, which I loved. I’m going to have to sit with this one for a while before I can determine how I feel about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

nulliusmomenti's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Death, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Colonisation

Minor: Misogyny, Slavery, Suicide, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and War

internationalreads's review against another edition

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

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

5.0

R. F. Kuang is the smartest author I’ve ever read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

wordwych's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Drug abuse and Drug use

Minor: Sexual assault