Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

167 reviews

moooooshell's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? No

4.25

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amalas_bookstop's review against another edition

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

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

5.0

I think I am still gasping for breath. I am clapping, if all dark academia is not written like this I do not want it. She was able to write what could have been such an elitist topic to something that was very easy to grasp, you don't even have to go searching. I want more!

This book is a straight masterpiece. It is so refreshing to read a victorian age dark academia novel through the eyes of people of color. I cannot fully grasp how she was able to touch on so many topics. From classism to racism to economics she covered it all masterfully. I was learning new scopes of language as I was trying to read this.

Her characterization of Letty and the and white guilt was so spot on. My mind is still reeling. Her characterization of being a person of color who is provided opportunity and the guilt/shame you can sometimes feel was also spot on. I did not know that my soul needed to read a view point of this age that is not told by the white majority. This was like therapy and a history lesson all in one.

A required read.

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kmturpie1025's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-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? Yes

5.0

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crybabybea's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Well, I'm disappointed.

First of all, the dark academia aspect was done very well. It felt atmospheric, grand, with a hint of mystery. It felt gloomy in a really fun way. The settings outside of the tower itself were less immersive, but the majority of the story takes place inside the tower anyway so it wasn't too distracting. The dark academia vibe was a genius way to explore a story about decolonization and racism. The magic system was inventive and interesting, and I liked how it stood as a metaphor for the industrial revolution.

The characters were just okay. We get to see Robin, the main character, the most, and I felt really attached to him by the end. The other characters had interesting stories that I felt didn't get explored enough. I understand this book leans in to its literary side, and the characters and arguably the entire plot are just allegories for bigger issues, but I think this made the character work suffer and it made the explosive ending pack less of a punch. Don't get me wrong, I loved the ending, and I still cried, but some of the other moments that were meant to be heavy-hitting fell flat because I didn't feel the connection to the characters. The found family aspect didn't feel fleshed out enough because of this as well.

I think the character work is a side effect of Kuang's tendency to overexplain things rather than actually have things happen. Some of the messaging was so on the nose that it felt pedantic and almost condescending at times. I wanted to read this book to challenge my thinking, and I hoped it would leave me with lots of thoughts to reflect on afterward, but everything gets explained to you so plainly that it completely ruins the amazing research and work Kuang put into telling the story of racism and colonization in academia. I mean, there were literally times when something racist or sexist would happen, then the narrator would have a whole paragraph to say something like "Robin wonders if this white person realized how racist they were being". It got irritating... I felt like I was on Sesame Street. I will say the writing itself was done very well, the prose was accessible despite the scientific, historical, and literary references used, and I appreciated a lot of R.F. Kuang's comments and her sarcastic footnotes.

The last issue is the pacing, which I think is also a side effect of this "telling not showing" issue. This book only gets good around the 60-70% mark. It had an extremely slow start with very little intrigue. We spent a long time in lectures and I felt not enough time was dedicated to furthering either the charcters OR the plot. It was a lot of sitting around and waiting. I don't mind books that have a hill into a snowball second half, but I almost put this book down multiple times because nothing was happening, then one minor action would happen and I would finally think we were going somewhere, just for it to slow down again.

All these issues made for a really weird reading experience where I absolutely dreaded picking the book back up, then when I started reading it was just fine and I wanted to know more, then it would get boring and the cycle repeated. I expected more from the rave reviews but left feeling like its potential got wasted. I still do think it's a good read overall, but it could have been better.

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