rileslovesyall 's review for:

Babel by R.F. Kuang

3.5

challenging dark informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

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I really wanted to like this book. The themes it’s addressing see important to me, and I think it’s valuable to see them explored in our literature. But it just… didn’t work well IMO. The book was a bit uncanny valley, in that the “magic” added in did not create a world meaningfully different than the real world. So it felt almost pointless that it had been added, except as a reason to talk a lot more about language and translation (which is interesting, but just didn’t feel like enough of a reason.)

Overall, the book felt a bit too on the nose about the themes it wanted to explore. It told you about them, instead of letting you follow a strong story and world development that let you see them. 


 I hope to read more of this author’s work in the future and will see how her exploration of these themes unfolds, but I won’t be revisiting this one.