Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

272 reviews

princess_azula's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring tense fast-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: Death, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Blood, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, and Colonisation

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Sexism, Islamophobia, Grief, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

rizky's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, and Colonisation

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Injury/Injury detail

bgmylc's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

• 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and War

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Blood, and Death of parent

Minor: Deportation

nikki_flowers's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

This book was brilliant in so many ways that I cannot even begin to adequately put into words. 

This is a book to help you decolonize your mind. The story itself is beautiful and the message is powerful. Fiction like this is so important. People need to see, these stories, to read these stories. Decolonial fiction like this gives us insight and hope and community and so much more. 

As I reflect back on my journey reading this masterpiece I cannot help but think of the events that were unfolding in the world at the same time. 

As I very slowly (for thoroughness sake, not a lack of interest) made my way through the book, I watched the world justify the genocide of Palestinians and the further colonization of Palestine. I watched so so many people, white girls and women in particular, obsess over this book but refuse to put the message into practice. If felt like a fetishization or infantilization of the book and its decolonial efforts. How many read this book and took what they wanted from it for their own selfish reasons and then watch Palestine burn and called Hamas terrorists or stayed completely silent. A completely colonizer move to take what you want from the book and leave the rest to burn regardless of the harm caused.

And yet, how many others read this work and felt its message in their bones. How many saw themselves on the page for the first time. How many people were awakened to liberations struggles. How many felt and cried and turned it into action. How many had hard and necessary conversations with themselves and/ or others because of this book.

That is the legacy of this book. The change it brought about to so many. The perverse colonizer response is not its legacy but rather further example of exactly why we need books like this. 

May this book live on in the hearts of those who have read it and may it fuel our souls in the liberation/mutual aid/revolution/abolition work we do.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Mass/school shootings, and Alcohol

limabeans's review against another edition

challenging informative tense slow-paced

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

4.5

To start off, this story was phenomenally written and was able to beautifully portray heavy and uncomfortable topics in an intriguing way. 

R.F. Kuang’s true dedication to this lengthy amount of research definitely shows in the novel. She’s able to accurately and appropriately portray loads of translations (especially with the match pairs), literature, and other cultural work. The blurbs at the bottom of pages were a very helpful touch.

This book is of course more than just the loss of concepts between translation; I would even argue that it’s not even as important compared to what else Babel contains. Kuang dives into imperialism, colonialism, identity confusion, one’s own roots, and so much more. And it ties the role of academia into all of this, which is tremendously hard to do.  

My favorite aspect was probably how Kuang portrayed Robin’s struggle of personal fortunes versus greater cause.

We can see this with Letty who doesn’t understand why the other three in their cohort would throw away all they have for something that would not directly affect them. I think this was done so well because we are all just human at the end of the day— originally Robin didn’t want to throw away his perfect, academic life for the Hermes society despite knowing how fucked up it was to have what he had and how we had gotten their from Richard.

I also believe it’s extremely hard to write a character change in this context with as harsh as issues that Robin had. It was masterfully done. (not that Victoire and Ramy weren’t facing this [duh], but they didn’t have nearly the same amount of internal conflict leading to their change as Robin did.)

There were some flaws. The introduction of the magic with the silver working math pairs was a fascinating concept yet it was barely touched upon. Not that a fantasy book has to be filled with magic, but more use of this honestly innovative idea would have been nice.

I also wish more little things. Like much more time was spent in Canton or revolved more around it. That the cohort characters weren’t relatively flat for half the story. But not much to complain about. 

It is hard because there’s so much hype around Babel. I do not find this story to have ‘unaware, groundbreaking’ concepts as I have been told or have seen from outside sources. (I try not to let media get in the way of biasing my own opinion though.) But it was definitely a book I will continue to think about and reflect upon; it truly was an excellent read and I’m very impressed by Kuang’s research and writing.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anybody. Seriously, I think everybody should read this book at some point regardless of genre or writing preferences. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Suicide, and Colonisation

Moderate: Hate crime, Slavery, Violence, and Murder

c_ab_bage's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative mysterious reflective tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

the most 5 star read i have ever read. as a layman to translation i found the entire thing fascinating and incredibly clever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, and Classism

beeetlebum's review

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Classism

chantellimus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Classism

lis98's review

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I don’t think I’ve ever had such an emotional reaction to a book before. Even now I don’t even know how to describe what I felt reading this. Sadness and guilt were a lot of it though. Reading this during the time of the US election and everything else made it hit different too I think. 

I heard criticism that this book tackled too many themes and bc of that didn’t go deep enough in some aspects for some people. I personally didn’t feel that way even though I can see where people were coming from. I think it was a choice to make it more about how this affected the individual characters personally and it made it so much more personal for the reader so I really am glad the author made that decision. Especially in hindsight about the importance they put on how people would only care if it affected them personally it was a very powerful choice to focus on the main characters motivations and inner world like this. 

I also really enjoyed the academic theory about language and translation a lot. It’s probably not everyone’s cup of tea but as someone who spends a lot of time learning and engaging with other languages this is something I find extremely fascinating. It also made the dark academia themes much more engaging and believable and play into the story more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, Colonisation, and Classism

morganlink11's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Classism