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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Found the pace quite slow
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
reflective
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
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
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:
No
A fascinating book, both alternative and not alternative: the colonialism and racism are very real and taken from real history. Longer than my usual audiobooks but well worth it!!
challenging
informative
sad
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
adventurous
challenging
dark
inspiring
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:
Yes
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:
Yes
Wowza. Will need to ruminate on this one a bit more before deciding completely how I feel.
RF Kuang has the power to write beautiful scenery, complex characters, and devastating insights artfully. I cried while reading this, but am not sure about the overall plot. This book is a powerful examination of colonization, empire, class, and race. It begs readers to question the status quo, to ask ourselves if we would make the same choices as the revolutionaries or their scared (and white!) counterparts. But, taken together, I feel the book is missing elements.
The pacing early on felt sluggish to me. We’re establishing the characters, and especially Robin. But doing so for 18 hours feels excessive at the cost of the plot. The glimpses of hindsight language keep some tension and remind the reader we’re building toward something, but without the interesting translation tidbits I’m not sure it would’ve been enough to keep going.
The last five hours of this audio book picked up significantly, and included many characters we had never seen before in the building phase. The interaction with the general laborers was the best imo, but strangely wasn’t as belabored as many of the other elements.
I’m tempted to compare it to the hunger games series for comparisons of fighting empire. Babel fairs less well in terms of plot, succinctness, and hopefulness. Not all books have to be hopeful, but an examination of the horrors of colonial empire and their flimsy foundations ending the way babel does is less enjoyable than a playbook about how empires successfully fall.
I will be exploring other works by this author to cement how I feel, but will be choosing a less lengthy one next.
RF Kuang has the power to write beautiful scenery, complex characters, and devastating insights artfully. I cried while reading this, but am not sure about the overall plot. This book is a powerful examination of colonization, empire, class, and race. It begs readers to question the status quo, to ask ourselves if we would make the same choices as the revolutionaries or their scared (and white!) counterparts. But, taken together, I feel the book is missing elements.
The pacing early on felt sluggish to me. We’re establishing the characters, and especially Robin. But doing so for 18 hours feels excessive at the cost of the plot. The glimpses of hindsight language keep some tension and remind the reader we’re building toward something, but without the interesting translation tidbits I’m not sure it would’ve been enough to keep going.
The last five hours of this audio book picked up significantly, and included many characters we had never seen before in the building phase. The interaction with the general laborers was the best imo, but strangely wasn’t as belabored as many of the other elements.
I’m tempted to compare it to the hunger games series for comparisons of fighting empire. Babel fairs less well in terms of plot, succinctness, and hopefulness. Not all books have to be hopeful, but an examination of the horrors of colonial empire and their flimsy foundations ending the way babel does is less enjoyable than a playbook about how empires successfully fall.
I will be exploring other works by this author to cement how I feel, but will be choosing a less lengthy one next.
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This just didn’t really get me hooked sadly. It felt quite often like the plot was being sacrificed in favour of making a point. While I wholeheartedly agree with many of the points made, the story really suffered for it. I was also really irrationally annoyed by the excessive use of footnotes. Showing the actual Chinese characters (although even this is done quite inconsistently), or some extra notes on the translation are reasonable uses, but often footnotes are just used to hammer a point home or extend the plot a little further. I just find this quite lazy writing.
informative
slow-paced