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adventurous
informative
mysterious
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
This is simultaneously a love letter to studying and falling down research rabbit holes, and perhaps its complete opposite. There's something bittersweet about how Kuang represents academia here, this beautiful, brutal world of intellectual pursuit, and I absolutely adored that tension. I think this book will draw in anyone who gets genuinely excited about researching obscure theories and losing themselves in ideas that most people would find incomprehensible.
In some ways, Kuang is deliberately opening you up to fall down her own rabbit hole. I certainly did, and now have an entire list of theories about hell that I'm desperate to research. I loved the unflinching discussion of entering academia with no money, that particular desperation of someone who wants to succeed more than anything but is constantly reminded of how precarious their position really is. And there was Kuang's usual sharp wit throughout. If you're a UK reader, the Oxford Brookes joke absolutely got me.
The pacing worked brilliantly at the beginning, especially if you're approaching this as fantasy (though I'm not sure I'd define it that way). The knowledge dumping was surprisingly well handled and never felt overwhelming, despite the constant references to theories and scholars (are they all necessary? Probably not, but it's satisfying to cling to the ones you recognise). I particularly enjoyed the Socrates slander.
Honestly, I thought this was heading toward five-star territory. But somewhere around the halfway mark, I stopped getting those giddy feelings and everything felt a bit stagnant. It missed what Babel had: those relationships and character dynamics that kept your pulse racing. Alice and Peter had so much promise together, but we just didn't seem to get enough of that connection.
I'd recommend going into this reading it as a love story about academia itself, and considering whether Kuang is presenting this world as utopia or dystopia. Maybe it's both.