Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Babel

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

dowleyrachel's review

challenging dark tense medium-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

3.5

honestly, I'm still trying to gather my opinions about this book. When a book leaves me heavy and longing for more resolution, it's hard for me to parse out this intended emptiness from my feelings of "liking" the book.

It felt a little long, like the Robin's years at Oxford could have been consolidated, or perhaps his waffling to join the cause or not. Sometimes it felt like the etymology didn't need to be explained as much. Footnotes would've sufficed. On the other hand, I enjoyed the ways in which the central plot moved; from passing school and trying to fit in to covering a murder to stopping a war to trying to bring the British Empire to screeching halt. I appreciated the complexity of the characters, how when there were fissures in the resistance, there wasn't necessarily one "right" person or stance.

This book in many ways was a tragedy, modeling the ways in which capitalism and colonialism consume everything. Selfishly, I wish for more hope in this novel, but perhaps the weighty message of the book will stick with readers longer.

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tulip_ss's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

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wild_rabbits's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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? It's complicated

5.0

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naisdayz's review

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challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I finished this book during class and could BARELY hold myself back from crying.

While Babel took me quite long to get through, I really enjoyed it. I really loved the cohort, though I would have wished for their relationships to be a little more fleshed out here and there. I could believe that Robin would die for Ramy no doubt - but the boys didn't seem as close to the girls and vice versa.

Anyhow, its safe to say that Letty's betrayal WRECKED me.

Kuang is really good at writing morally grey characters. Letty will do all those horrible things and then her intermission comes and you're like... Oh. That's why. And it doesn't excuse her shooting one of her friends or being the way she is, but it makes you understand and somewhat emphasize with her.

I found the footnotes that explain things that are relevant to the story, both fictional and (mainly) real to be pretty cool - it allows you to understand the story and what was happening on an even deeper level, even if it also tends to pull you out of the story a little.

Babel is a very good analogy for people wanting to learn more about how our society works, and how privileges affect us and the people around us.

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hagwife's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative 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

5.0

Babel is all at once one of the most precise novels I've ever read and also one of the most tumultuous – precise and exact in the storytelling, the construction, and of the violence of colonialism and tumultuous in how the cohort of Robin, Remy, Victoire, and Letty have to navigate the spaces in which the reside. It is a stunning work, wrought in marvelous detail, scathing truths, beautiful relationships, and heartbreaking depictions of the choices anyone who is not in the majority must make to survive, let alone thrive, in the face of overwhelming abuse. And it is also a love letter to language, to meaning, to one's personal history, and to using those to form connection.

For anyone looking for another deep-dive into an alternate history that weaves magic and does not pull its punches, I recommend Dan Vyleta's Smoke. To anyone looking for the headlong rush of adventure and an unapologetic, vicious love letter to a place and its peoples, N.K. Jemisin's The Great Cities duology is the way to go.

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