Reviews - Babel | The StoryGraph

65.1k reviews for:

Babel

R.F. Kuang

4.34 AVERAGE

roniloo's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark informative slow-paced

Babel is an absolutely amazing feat! It did, however, take me so long to read and often left me feeling slogged in the first two thirds. I recognize my brain was probably just not up to the task of another dense dark-academia after reading poppy war, secret history & blood over bh. This one seemed to require more bandwidth (not a negative).

This was not without fault, and yet I highlighted SO MANY pages where she captured so perfectly the tension between recognizing reality while knowing better. Also huge props to her for the sheer amount of research that had to go into even every footnote.

Overall, the most honest book I’ve found on scrutinizing our relationships with imperialism, capitalism, xenophobia etc, but less of a fantasy book with magic than I had anticipated lol. If you like words and hate colonialism, you’ll love it.

Content Warnings

annanvk09's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative 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: Yes

cossneachta's review against another edition

4.25

challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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

bohohohoh's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-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

laurasm's review against another edition

5.0

One of the best books I have ever read

rlynnfish's review against another edition

4.0

This was such an interesting premise! There are aspects of Babel reminiscent of the poppy war*, but for some reason I found this book a bit more heavy-handed in it's themes. (Maybe because we have all this in one both rather than spread across a series.) Not my favorite by this author, but undeniably a great book.

*hellloooo ending