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finallythetruth's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
✅ What worked
• the exploration of Empire - what sustains it, the violence within it, the exploitation and plundering, how it treats the PoCs displaced from their colonised homelands as disposable, and welcomes and treats them "well" only for the benefit of Empire. For all of this book's flaws, this was something I enjoyed reading about.
• the exploration of languages and linguistics - as someone who loves languages, I enjoyed this too.
• the discussions about how we can bring down the Empire, though they could have gone much deeper.
• the revolutionary group was a potentially interesting group and they could have done so much more, but as i explain below, it's clear RFK does not understand direct action groups
• I learnt a lot about the history of the British Empire and now want to learn more about their exploitation of India
🙅🏻♀️ What didn't work so well
• RFK's writing is not as good as people think.
• She does not know how to write fully fleshed out characters. After 540 pages, I still barely know let alone like most of the characters. I liked Ramy and could picture Griffin and kinda wanted him to be the hero. Victoire was a bit hard for me to picture, Robin was so flat, and Letty was incredibly annoying which I imagine was RFK's goal as she tried to bring out the fragility of yt women. Professor Lovell was despicable and somewhat terrifying but I wanted more about his past and motivations.
• RFK will give us inklings of a character, she'll write stuff like "his face was unreadable" or "something flashed across his face but it was gone in an instant", but never gets around to fleshing this out.
• i think people are so taken aback by this book because they like the discussion of Empire - because RF Kuang spent so much of the book pontificating with her own thoughts about Empire, almost as if this is the first time someone has written about this. But to me this was done with so little subtlety or nuance. Too. Much. Lecturing. Show us, don't tell us. It almost felt like RFK was parroting things she'd read in Frantz Fanon's books.
• everything after the second sea voyage is so incredibly difficult to believe. It was incongruous to the direction we'd been led to believe the book would take.
• on this topic, it's clear RFK has never striked before nor has she been in a direct action group. Is the strike in the book meant to make up for RFK not striking with the Harper Collins workers?
• RFK portrays what at first appears to be a revolutionary group, but the actions that they take later on are just so unbelievable. We also barely get to see much of their global network and this should really have been explored in this book as a thread about how to bring down Empire. One of the members talks about how we have to unite in our struggle against colonisation, and the global network would have been a great way to show that. There could have been collaborations with other nations including ones that are heavily featured in the story, but this didn't happen (I guess it would have been hard to communicate rapidly, although the silver bars symbolised our modern technology so I'm sure they'd have found some way).
• she killed off too many characters. She also ends up representing resistance martyrs in a pretty colonised way.
• This is not a fantasy book and it should not be marketed as such. I still consider myself a beginner fantasy reader but this had so little world building in terms of a fantastical world.
• someone please tell RFK she isn't gonna make footnotes fetch. They were overused just for the purpose of her showing off her own knowledge. She spends too much time lecturing the reader (about language and history), the dialogue could be much more succinct, there's so many big chunky passages where no action takes place and the dialogue doesn't serve much purpose except to once again show off her knowledge. And there is a lot of repetition.
• finally, she has totally imposed 2020s DEI language onto 1800s Oxford students of colour. On the first sea voyage, Robin - probably a 11 year old at the time - mentally makes notes about the indentured labour that a Chinese sailor he encounters is contracted to complete. I have never met an 11 year old who speaks like this, and I don't expect people outside the West to utilise the same kind of DEI language either.
In the end i give this 6☆ out of 10. It seems crazy that after so many criticisms I still give 6☆. I don't think this is a terrible book, but it's just nowhere near as amazing as people think.
I want more of the bringing down Empire, i just think Rebecca doesn't understand it enough herself to be writing about it.
Graphic: Child abuse, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Death of parent, and Colonisation
Moderate: Slavery
lavendervioletreader's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Torture, Blood, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and War
Minor: Alcoholism and Drug use
paigerb's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.25
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Trafficking, and War
readandchill23's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I kept thinking... Joanne could NEVER.
Also, side note: We all know a Letty. We should all shun our Lettys.
A few favorite quotes:
"Colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking; a body endowed with reason. it is naked violence and only gives in when confronted with greater violence."
"Empire needed extraction. Violence shocked the system because the system cannot cannibalize itself and survive. The hands of the Empire were tied because it could not raise that from which it profited. And like those sugar fields, like those markets, like those bodies of unwilling labor, Babel was an asset."
"Strikers in this country never won broad public support. For the public merely wanted all of the conveniences of modern life without the guilt of knowing how those conveniences were procured."
"Violence was the only thing that brought the colonizer to the table."
Moderate: Bullying, Child death, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Grief, Gaslighting, Colonisation, and Classism
onmypocket's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
elisha002's review against another edition
- 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
2.75
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Trafficking, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, and Classism
khymihr's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Torture
Minor: Gun violence, Slavery, Trafficking, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment
themoostconfused's review against another edition
- 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
"That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands." (pg. 535)
I don't even know where to begin. R. F. Kuang has done it again. She has rattled me, shaken me to my core and I thank her for it. Going into it - having read the entire Poppy War series - I knew I was not bound for a happy, carefree book. Coming from an anthropology background, the extent of human destruction and hatred of "the other" it not news to me but it continues to move me every time.
I can already sense that I will return to this book over and over again in the future and will recommend it to everyone I come across, although not without warning.
The book's alternate title "The Necessity of Violence" captures the journey this book takes one on while reading quite succinctly, althought the extent of this might not seem obvious upon first glance.
In the process I have learned a great deal about linguistics and am planning on dealving into that further. But first I am going to have to digest what I have become witness to by reading this book.
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation
Minor: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation
scripturient's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Confinement, Gun violence, Hate crime, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Religious bigotry, and Cultural appropriation
windowplant's review against another edition
- 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
3.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Bullying, Confinement, Drug use, Gun violence, Self harm, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Trafficking, Mass/school shootings, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic