Reviews tagging 'Death'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

1509 reviews

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective 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: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark mysterious 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: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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 emotional reflective 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: Yes

wow wow wow

I LOVED this omg. This explores everything: colonialism, imperialism, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, overall bigotry, but all within the context of academia and the British empire. For being such an academic, thought-provoking book, this also has its comedic moments. Not funny haha, but funny, sharp quips that critique the systems that still plague so much of the world. I also loved the way footnotes were used in this!! I’ve never seen them utilized in such an inventive, effective, and funny way. Robin is SUCH an interesting character, and he speaks to the people who align themselves with human rights and revolution in theory, but perhaps struggle to engage in revolution movements in a more direct and uncomfortable way that would upset the convenience that capitalist systems would have us rely on. Ok also the blending of historical fiction and fantasy/magic in this was so stellar, and silver working as a concept is fleshed out in an incredibly clever way. 

This story is SO timely and I can’t recommend it enough!!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark 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

Quite possibly the best book I've ever read! The storytelling and linguistic craftsmanship alone is flawless but weaving through the barbarity of empire and colonisation into an epic alternate history ties together solidarity, race and class struggle makes this an unforgettable read.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective 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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was so good, I hated it in the best way (aka: I learned more about the cruelty in the world and it left me feeling devastated at the end)

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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark informative mysterious reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Couldn't quite get to 4* on this... In some ways I can really understood the hype - it's an entirely novel idea, intelligently thought out and with very strong historic context/knowledge. In fact, even as a piece of fantasy fiction it is still pretty informative about the period of history and empire that it covers. I think/hope it could be quite thought-provoking to a lot of readers. That said, it felt really heavy-handed throughout. The same arguments were made repeatedly, always in very hammering ways and to make points that I think every reader can appreciate as obvious wrongs of empire; some more nuanced scenarios would have added complexity. And in order to labour these same points, the pace became too slow for me for a large part of the book. Characters were quite one-dimensional and traits fitted neatly into generic or stereotyping boxes of eg the indignant one, the insufferable one, the blinkered one, the self-righteous one etc. And that leads me to the writing style...to me it came across as incredibly self-indulgent. As mentioned before, yes there is a lot of intelligence behind this book. I really enjoyed the focus on language and etymology, but there was something about the tone that felt a bit arrogant or condescending to me. And I didn't feel there was enough beauty or lyricism to the rest of the writing to make up for it.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings