Reviews tagging 'Deportation'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

70 reviews

hedsek's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

I found this book really gripping, amazingly well written and super insightful. The whole idea of the silver working and the role language plays in it is really interesting and also appeals to me personally as a linguist, and it was clearly very well researched. The overall treatment of how people respond to oppression was also well thought out and I thought it was gripping to read about the different ways in which the main characters dealt with it. However, one thing I really disliked about this book were the footnotes. They served many different goals and it was very unclear from what perspective they were meant. I feel like they also implied that the author didn't really trust readers to understand the difference between fiction and reality and sometimes even that certain racist views expressed by characters are indeed racist and not factually true. This was mostly in the beginning of the book, though, and it did not take away from my enjoyment of the rest of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Suicide, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Torture, Violence, Grief, Racism, and Child abuse

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Classism, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Blood, Slavery, and War

Minor: Bullying, Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, Deportation, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, and Islamophobia

gracefully_jk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Child abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Violence, Racism, Murder, Misogyny, Classism, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, War, and Confinement

Minor: Religious bigotry, Body horror, Suicide, Slavery, Genocide, and Deportation

Violence/injury detail is infrequent and not too upsetting. Most of the content warnings are because this is a book that explicitly deals with colonization and its effects, and the difficult task of fighting against it.

torismazarine's review against another edition

dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Death, Misogyny, War, Sexism, Racism, Drug use, Xenophobia, and Grief

Moderate: Violence, Physical abuse, Cultural appropriation, Murder, Slavery, Suicide, and Child abuse

Minor: Deportation, Hate crime, and Infidelity

jfield351's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious relaxing tense 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

4.0

It was a very compelling and easy to read book but the ending seemed cut off midway. does this mean there’s a sequel? it was a great read though, very dark academia. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, War, Violence, Racism, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Gore, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Deportation, Toxic friendship, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Murder, Grief, Emotional abuse, and Domestic abuse

criticalbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Car accident, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Ableism, Alcoholism, Blood, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Bullying, Cursing, Death of parent, Deportation, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Chronic illness, Death, Gaslighting, Medical content, Misogyny, Police brutality, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, and Sexism

eralbesu's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

Reading this book made me feel smarter. I felt like I learned something, even though I’m fully aware this is historical fiction, it felt educational in a sense. As a victim of colonialism, it challenged me to think of it in a way I never had before. 

RF Kuang is so impressive as a writer. It’s inspiring and challenged me to go deeper with my own writing. 

I really enjoyed this novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Grief, Islamophobia, Toxic friendship, Violence, War, Drug use, Death of parent, Deportation, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Gun violence, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

Moderate: Abandonment, Medical content, Death, and Medical trauma

the_bookishmum's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins Audio for access to the audiobook in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book is my first experience of R.F Kuang’s writing and the narrator Chris Lew Kum Hoi gave it the gravitas, atmospheric beauty, sensitivity and raw emotion that the prose deserved.

Babel is not a book for the faint of heart, the topics it deals with are heart wrenching. It unflinchingly holds up a mirror to our own society and says ‘can you not see that this is how the world still works, that society is still this broken’. It is written as an alternative history, set in a time when the romantics such as Shelley were favoured and only white European men were permitted to study in the likes of Oxford and Cambridge. It is written in a way that resembles the prose of Oscar Wilde. It is here in this world we are confronted with the upbringing of Robin Swift, a boy stolen from his home in Canton, China, and brought to England under the guise of being ‘saved’ from the ‘barbarism’ of his home town (we later learn but always really know that this is a lie constructed by his guardian for his own gain). By Robin’s side we experience the heartbreak of the loss of oneself, the way his own natural language of Cantonese becomes a stranger to him even though he still dreams in the language. He is moulded into the perfect language scholar, beaten for attempting to read and enjoy fiction. Robin’s story is sadly not an unusual one, a child taken in the name of colonisation, ‘educated’ to the point of losing who he is and then used against his own people, set around the time of the opium wars in China. Robin falls in love with the idea of Oxford college, the romance of it all. He finds friendship with the other Babel scholars and for a while is shielded from the othering he will later feel at the hands of other Oxford scholars who very much feel that Robin and his cohort do not belong.

The characters and emotions were so raw and real,

Now for the fantasy side of this book. The power of language is explored heavily in this book, words and silver are the most important things within this society. The silver working represents the very real industrial revolution. The students of Babel are there only because they are masters in their own language, their ability to translate to English from their native tongues is one that gives the silver more power and it can therefore be used in the same way a spell would be used. The magic was well thought out and at times dark and visceral.

Babel is about friendship, betrayal and the effects of colonialism on the colonised. It is about resistance and the plight of the working man vs the oppressive regime that seeks only to better itself riding on the backs of the downtrodden. It is about how the world we live in would not exist if it were not stolen. It is about the power of language and the way it can be used in both resistance and oppression with similar strength. It is beautiful, raw and heartbreaking.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, War, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Classism, Deportation, Drug use, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

leonormsousa's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Cultural appropriation, Genocide, Murder, Sexism, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Child abuse, Classism, Death of parent, Hate crime, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual harassment, Trafficking, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Torture, Toxic friendship, Violence, Deportation, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, War, and Xenophobia

errie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Sexism, Trafficking, War, Toxic friendship, Classism, Racism, Cultural appropriation, Racial slurs, Slavery, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Murder, Physical abuse, Death, Grief, and Hate crime

some_random_person_hi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

RF Kuang is too good at ripping my heart to shreds

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Classism, Suicide, Grief, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence

Moderate: Colonisation, Drug use, Physical abuse, War, Child abuse, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, Hate crime, Mass/school shootings, and Misogyny

Minor: Sexual assault, Ableism, Alcohol, and Deportation