Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Babel

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

endlessallison's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

This book is so relevant to today and captures the perspectives of both the colonizers and the colonized on such beautifully blunt painful ways I truly believe everyone should read it.

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dpsmom's review

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This book had so much potential. A group of young individuals finally being offered the opportunity to rise above the lower class society in which they were born to study at the prestigious Oxford Translation college sounds like a winning story. And the story itself was a cool idea, but how it was implemented fell flat. The book is long, so much so that there were certain points that dragged on and didn't feel like they really helped advance the plot. They could have been summed up in fewer pages and still had the same effect.

The characters were stereotypical in their mannerisms and actions. The author painted these characters in a certain way for the audience, but when some characters did an about face in their actions, dialogue and demeanor, it was hard to find the sudden shift to be wholly believable.

Additionally, certain elements that contributed exponentially to the plot were only glossed over (Canton opium house). I kept waiting for more to detail the tragic opium epidemic and Robin's reaction/epiphany, but it never materialized.

This novel was classified as fantasy, but with the exception of the silver bars enhancing technology, there was nothing that stood out and screamed it should belong in that genre. The silver translation portion didn't even seem to be a massive plot point either (until the end), which again, would not have made the cut as a fantasy/dystopian/ etc. novel.

The ending was completely predictable, so much so, that I was ready to close the book and be done and I still had 50 pages to go. I knew what was going to happen, and how it was going to happen. There were no plot twists or surprise endings.

The middle dragged. Until about page 300, I struggled to continue reading. Around the 300 page mark, the story picked up and became a little more exciting, but it slowed down again the last 100 pages and just. kept. going. when it needed to be wrapped up.

The writing was excellent and varied. There is no doubt that Kuang is a talented novelist.

Overall, this was touted as being a fantastic fantasy/dystopia novel, but as someone who reads fantasy regularly, this would not be one I'd recommend a friend to read.

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gemmabarnes's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is amazing! While I know many people view it as slow, the first part of the book is so important to understand the motivations of the characters later in the book. Kuang has done a beautiful job showing the effects and impacts that translation and linguistics has on the world. And then to go and add the magical elements with it! She has written a beautiful novel with ideals and subjects that everyone needs to understand.

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senga15's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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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nikki_flowers's review against another edition

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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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themoostconfused's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

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.

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