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dwjnv's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Classism, Slavery, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Death, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Violence, War, and Body horror
Moderate: Child abuse, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Vomit
Minor: Fire/Fire injury
marareyn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Body horror, Grief, and Blood
Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, War, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Drug use, Violence, and Murder
Minor: Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture
clairew97's review against another edition
- 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
4.75
Graphic: Gaslighting, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Slavery, Addiction, Alcohol, Colonisation, Sexism, Death of parent, Deportation, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, War, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Police brutality, Child death, Classism, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Vomit
gracefully_jk's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Colonisation, Child abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Violence, Racism, Murder, Misogyny, Classism, and Racial slurs
Moderate: Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, War, and Confinement
Minor: Religious bigotry, Body horror, Suicide, Slavery, Genocide, and Deportation
Violence/injury detail is infrequent and not too upsetting. Most of the content warnings are because this is a book that explicitly deals with colonization and its effects, and the difficult task of fighting against it.swalk's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Years of British colonialism, culminates in deep seated racism, leading to resentment and power struggles in a world of magic, not that very different from our own.
The characters are nuanced and well rounded, meaning I was fully invested in what happened to each one.
The comparisons to Philip Pullman are well deserved. This is a fantastic and thought-provoking book. I feel privileged to have been given a copy of this book to review by HarperCollins and Netgalley.
Graphic: Racism, Body horror, Xenophobia, Trafficking, and Colonisation
Moderate: Classism, Child abuse, and Bullying
Minor: Gun violence and Sexism
the_bookishmum's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This book is my first experience of R.F Kuang’s writing and the narrator Chris Lew Kum Hoi gave it the gravitas, atmospheric beauty, sensitivity and raw emotion that the prose deserved.
Babel is not a book for the faint of heart, the topics it deals with are heart wrenching. It unflinchingly holds up a mirror to our own society and says ‘can you not see that this is how the world still works, that society is still this broken’. It is written as an alternative history, set in a time when the romantics such as Shelley were favoured and only white European men were permitted to study in the likes of Oxford and Cambridge. It is written in a way that resembles the prose of Oscar Wilde. It is here in this world we are confronted with the upbringing of Robin Swift, a boy stolen from his home in Canton, China, and brought to England under the guise of being ‘saved’ from the ‘barbarism’ of his home town (we later learn but always really know that this is a lie constructed by his guardian for his own gain). By Robin’s side we experience the heartbreak of the loss of oneself, the way his own natural language of Cantonese becomes a stranger to him even though he still dreams in the language. He is moulded into the perfect language scholar, beaten for attempting to read and enjoy fiction. Robin’s story is sadly not an unusual one, a child taken in the name of colonisation, ‘educated’ to the point of losing who he is and then used against his own people, set around the time of the opium wars in China. Robin falls in love with the idea of Oxford college, the romance of it all. He finds friendship with the other Babel scholars and for a while is shielded from the othering he will later feel at the hands of other Oxford scholars who very much feel that Robin and his cohort do not belong.
The characters and emotions were so raw and real,
Now for the fantasy side of this book. The power of language is explored heavily in this book, words and silver are the most important things within this society. The silver working represents the very real industrial revolution. The students of Babel are there only because they are masters in their own language, their ability to translate to English from their native tongues is one that gives the silver more power and it can therefore be used in the same way a spell would be used. The magic was well thought out and at times dark and visceral.
Babel is about friendship, betrayal and the effects of colonialism on the colonised. It is about resistance and the plight of the working man vs the oppressive regime that seeks only to better itself riding on the backs of the downtrodden. It is about how the world we live in would not exist if it were not stolen. It is about the power of language and the way it can be used in both resistance and oppression with similar strength. It is beautiful, raw and heartbreaking.
Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, War, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Classism, Deportation, Drug use, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
mariadanna's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Genocide, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Violence, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Body horror, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Gore, Grief, and War
emmyb's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
The themes in this book will stick with me for a long time. I can't wait to have a physical copy in my hands to fill with annotations.
I received this book as an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Graphic: Colonisation, Grief, Racism, Violence, Death, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Misogyny, Death of parent, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
Minor: Drug use, Confinement, Body horror, Slavery, Physical abuse, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Classism, Torture, Toxic friendship, and Child abuse