Review by peace_love_on_planet_earth - Babel

peace_love_on_planet_earth 's review for:

Babel by R.F. Kuang

4.25

challenging emotional inspiring sad tense slow-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: Complicated

This is really hard to rate. The first half is incredibly slow and I struggled to get into it. If you don’t care about languages or learning about the history, this will be very slow and dull. I found Robin’s passiveness frustrating at times.
I will say that this author’s range is utterly brilliant. Honestly wish I could ever aspire to have such incredible talent.
The second half flies a bit more once things start happening and then it drags a bit around 75% this probably could have been shorter, given the length of the college lectures but I think certain things needed to be explained.
The parallels to the current political climate and the genocide in Gaza were stark. We have not come far at all.
This doesn’t particularly have an HEA but then I don’t think it could. And certain plot threads get left which makes it feel unfinished/unsatisfactory.
I thought for one moment that

Robin and Ramy had been in love this whole time, near the end when Robin is reflecting back to that first day they met but then the author didn’t take this step. I’m disappointed that didn’t happen. It would’ve made sense to hide it and allude to throughout the book. Robin needed some extra love, just give it to him. I shall choose to believe that he had that. Letty’s betrayal was devastating.

Content Warnings