Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Babel

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

940 reviews

1ucine's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I stumbled upon this book via tiktok and I can't say I have been deceived by the description I had of it before reading it. It truly is amazing and gives so much to think about. It's mix of hope and acceptance of what's to come is really interesting

Content Warnings

emlouise42's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional 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

Content Warnings

scrubsandbooks's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark informative medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

“English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”

“The university tells us we are special, chosen, selected, when really we are severed from our motherlands and raised within spitting distance of a class we can never truly become a part of. The university turned us against our own and made us believe our only options were complicity or the streets. That was no favour, Sterling. It was cruelty. Don’t ask me to love my master.”

“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.”

This book may have just several “Best Of”s awards in my heart. Best book written in 2022, best read of 2023, best of this decade, of this century, of maybe even my lifetime. I will never be the same.

This is my very first R. F. Kuang book and I am blown away by her writing. Her prose is on point, her characters are incredible with immense depth and the world-building in this is absolutely glorious. It made me rage, it made me hurt, it made me gasp “HOLY SHIT” aloud, and it even, despite the dark themes, made me laugh a few times.

This is not an easy read to go through so if you’re expecting a whimsical YA-level fantasy, throw that thought out the window (although, LBR, YA doesn’t necessarily mean easy to read). This is a masterpiece blending R. F. Kuang’s background in linguistics and literature with a cutthroat criticism of racism in academia. Kuang did not hold back! Amidst memorable and complicated characters were factoids about words and their etymology including footnotes that didn’t take away from the story. If you’re a word nerd like me, you might be absolutely absorbed in those descriptors like I was.

Do I wish I could read more of the characters in their lifetimes? Absolutely, but the ending of this book solidified that it was a standalone and honestly, it will be enough for me. I loved reading of the characters (Ramy will always have my heart), of their trials and hardships not only as Oxford students but as victims of racism and British imperialism, I felt all their emotions, hoped with them and hoped for them that everything will work out for them in the end. I had high expectations from this book as hyped as it was and it didn’t meet them — it surpassed them all! I hope in the near future, students will be dissecting this and appreciating it in classrooms much like we do now with the great classics.

CW: racism, microaggression, colorism, British colonization and imperialism, exploitation of the poor, opium mention, brief opium use, injury detail, blood, death, violence of war, mentions of war, suicide, slavery mentions

Content Warnings

egsie's review against another edition

4.5

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

perseffable's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious 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

This book dragged a lot in the middle but I can't help but still love it. The climax was so good and so terrible and I am quite looking forward to RF Kuangs next book

Content Warnings

random19379's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad 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

Content Warnings

hannahleigh's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous emotional hopeful informative sad 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

Babel starts with strong “cozy Harry Potter school days” vibes, but with a more serious undertone, before switching directions and jumping straight into

How To Get Away With Murder

vibes about halfway through. This event is where the fun ends and the major character growth begins, where friendships are tested to the max, and where the story picks up the pace in a big way. This was a fun read (I listened to it, and the narrator did an incredible job), and even though the content was difficult to digest at times, the writing was accessible and understandable.

You could build an entire class around the content and discussion happening within Babel. The way R.F . Kuang is able to not just explain colonialism in a digestible way, but show the characters thought processes while coming to terms with it (or not), makes this story set 200 years ago extremely timeless and current.

The main “cohort” in Babel was not made up of a random group of characters that Kuang thought would be fun to write about, but an extremely well curated and thought through, diverse bunch, who’s nationalities, differences, and similarities were picked extremely carefully. It was essential for Letty to be white and English. Despite her backstory and her struggle of being a woman at Oxford in the 1830s, Letty’s inability to fully understand and relate to Robin, Rami, and Victoire calls careful but intentional attention to any white readers (me). The conversations between Letty and the others are so well written that it’s clear that Kuang is not just writing dialogue between characters but dialogue with the reader in an extremely meaningful way. This perfectly exemplifies the grip colonialism has on the world, and forces the reader to have a good existential think.

I have close friends who’s families are from Thailand, Japan, and Korea, and we have had many conversations about the existing racism and micro (and macro) aggressions they have received through their lives. I am as white as they come, and haven’t personally had to deal with any more than simply being a woman, and it pains me to hear my friends being treated that way in the 21st century. Reading Babel made me angry, because for a story that takes place 200 years ago and who’s plot is to fight the system, it infuriates and hurts me how relevant so much of the story is today. But then again, that’s exactly the point of the book.

I hope any of this made any sense.

Content Warnings