Reviews with content warning for Racism - Babel

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

2498 reviews

snarkycrafter's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

While I really wanted to like this book, the story fell flat for me. Quite flat. When I was about 70% through I still felt like not much had happened and was considering a DNF.

The magic in the book felt like an afterthought.

It was an interesting commentary on colonialism and whiteness. But beyond that I found little in this book to be gripping or interesting. I had to push myself to finish it.

I really wanted to like this book, but it just didn’t land for me.

Content Warnings

corvusastrum's review against another edition

2.25

slow-paced

Loveable characters: No

Even though I did everything right – I looked into the reviews, read the first few pages to get a feel for the writing style, I even watched a review, all of which gave me a very positive impression of it – this book has been one of my biggest literary disappointments, ever.

Content Warnings

lilymeibean's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

damn, i'll say upfront, i'm surprised i didn't cry while reading this -- but maybe it hasn't all hit yet, maybe i need to reread this in another state of mind and it will but, man, even without tears, i'm having quite a time trying to process this book. i will admit that the book was slow for the first 100-200 pages for me, but i was still invested in the world and the characters, especially robin, as he navigated his new life. i think i spent too much time trying to find and hold onto potential themes or details that might be brought in later on -- but it probably would've been better just to read without trying to puzzle piece everything together, the book does that for itself.

but overall, i think what really stood out to me was how perfectly placed this book is, in time, in history, and yet, in its own world altogether that reflects the problems in ours right back at us. in a world where we often see history filtered through very specific lenses in our education, i feel like this helped fill in some gaps where i never found myself looking. i wish more books did this as well as babel: showed the world in all its colors in a way most readers have never seen before.

5/5

Content Warnings

lydia_reads's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

chewybuddy's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is an all-time great work. Very clearly a labor of love and passion, heavily researched with a magic system that seamlessly works in as a stand-in for any resource that a society demands. At the same time, this book feels like an effortless coming of age story about growing in a system that wants and needs you while telling you you’re nothing without it. This is a story about the rawest form of radicalization where everything can be taken from you if the right people call for it. As bleak as this premise is, this book has immense heart and respect for the characters trying to survive in this brutal world and champions their hope like nothing else.

Content Warnings

rainbowalcremie1995's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Overall, this was an enjoyable book for people who want to read a fantasy story about academia that acknowledges the ways academic institutions can be both helpful and harmful to the societies they’re a part of.

I really enjoyed the magic system that was introduced in the book. Although the characters in the book may have to study for hours on end to master it, it wasn’t too complicated for a reader to understand.

I don’t really have an individual favorite character in this book, but some of my favorite parts were whenever Robin and his cohort were just hanging out and talking about their studies, and it made the things they went through together near the end of the book a lot more impactful. I feel like at times, the characters in this book work best when they’re bouncing off of other characters. I really liked Griffin as a foil to Robin, and Letty being the odd one out of her friend group. I was surprised at how much Robin grew as a character by the end as well. In the first half of the story, I found him a little passive, acting as a camera to the more interesting characters in the story. Now that I’ve finished the book, though, I think this flaw may have been intentional, and it makes it a lot more satisfying to see him come into his own by the end.

I think that the pacing could be a little awkward at times, and there were definitely parts of the book that I felt could have been arranged a little differently. For example, I thought that the Hermes Society being introduced so early in the story made certain reveals about Babel’s true nature a lot less impactful. In fact, I would say that a pretty big weakness of this book is that most of the plot twists very predictable.

I saw Letty’s betrayal coming from a mile away, as I’m sure most readers did. I think that her POV chapter coming after the betrayal was also unnecessary, it didn’t add anything to her character that we didn’t already know.

In addition, it sometimes feels like the book is too afraid of subtext and has to make the themes explicit in both the main text and the many footnotes. Which is a shame, because there were a some good lines in this book where a member of the faculty or an older student would say something normal but extremely sinister, but very few of them were allowed to hang without a footnote butting in to say, “By the way, they just said something racist.” I guess not everyone reading this book will have the same background knowledge coming in to it, but I wish that the buildup to Babel not being as great as it seems on the surface had been more gradual.

Despite the book having a bit of a slow middle, I thought the last third of the book was pretty good. I was up until two in the morning yesterday just to see how it ended!

I wish that the Hermes Society and the older students who were members got some more character development before they died. I am glad that Victoire got a little more character development near the end as she helps Robin start the strike. The progression of the strike and the descriptions of society breaking down as the result of one academic tower no longer maintaining the silver was well done, as was Robin’s final descent into violence that leads up to his death. At first, I was surprised that the strike ended tragically, with Robin and almost all of his allies in the tower sacrificing themselves to blow it up. However, it’s still a hopeful ending, and it probably would have been a little too neat of the strike had completely changed society overnight without any bloodshed.

I can’t judge this book on how well it works as a piece of historical fiction, as I’m not too familiar with the history of the Opium Wars, and I only speak English. As a fantasy novel, I can say that I had a fun time reading it, and although I think this book is a little too long for me to ever want to read the entire thing over again, I think it definitely earns four stars from me.

Content Warnings

milkylilia's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative 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: Complicated

Oh gosh, what an important and impactful book this was. I'm at a loss for words.

The themes of this book were extremely heavy but I think the author found a way to present them in the most digestible way possible. Was it still depressing and soulcrushing at times? Yes. Did it left me feeling overwhelmed and like there is no hope left for humanity? Yes, that too. But did it impact my view of the world and make me a bit of a better person? Yes, I very much believe so.

Also as a multilingual person who speaks four languages (to varying decree), the magic system of this book hit different. I enjoy languages and translation tremendously, so using those as a source of power and highlighting their importance to society and culture just scratched my brain nicely.

Content Warnings

moooooshell's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

imds's review against another edition

4.5

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

lkyreads's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The premise of Babel is fascinating and I found the world building to be quite well-done. Though the book was predictable and dragged at times, I still couldn’t put it down.

I absolutely loved learning about the magic and language in the first part of the book.

Minor quibble: There were a LOT of footnotes and a couple of them didn’t render on my eReader. One of them was actually interesting, but I had to look at it on my phone to know that.

I do wish we’d learned more about the rest of the folks in the tower at the end. And more about Victoire throughout the book. I also wish we’d been able to see a bit more of the Hermes Society in the Old Library.

Content Warnings

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