A review by rainbowalcremie1995
Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Overall, this was an enjoyable book for people who want to read a fantasy story about academia that acknowledges the ways academic institutions can be both helpful and harmful to the societies they’re a part of.  

I really enjoyed the magic system that was introduced in the book.  Although the characters in the book may have to study for hours on end to master it, it wasn’t too complicated for a reader to understand.  

I don’t really have an individual favorite character in this book, but some of my favorite parts were whenever Robin and his cohort were just hanging out and talking about their studies, and it made the things they went through together near the end of the book a lot more impactful.  I feel like at times, the characters in this book work best when they’re bouncing off of other characters.  I really liked Griffin as a foil to Robin, and Letty being the odd one out of her friend group.  I was surprised at how much Robin grew as a character by the end as well.  In the first half of the story, I found him a little passive, acting as a camera to the more interesting characters in the story.  Now that I’ve finished the book, though, I think this flaw may have been intentional, and it makes it a lot more satisfying to see him come into his own by the end.  

I think that the pacing could be a little awkward at times, and there were definitely parts of the book that I felt could have been arranged a little differently.  For example, I thought that the Hermes Society being introduced so early in the story made certain reveals about Babel’s true nature a lot less impactful.  In fact, I would say that a pretty big weakness of this book is that most of the plot twists very predictable. 
I saw Letty’s betrayal coming from a mile away, as I’m sure most readers did.  I think that her POV chapter coming after the betrayal was also unnecessary, it didn’t add anything to her character that we didn’t already know.
 

In addition, it sometimes feels like the book is too afraid of subtext and has to make the themes explicit in both the main text and the many footnotes.  Which is a shame, because there were a some good lines in this book where a member of the faculty or an older student would say something normal but extremely sinister, but very few of them were allowed to hang without a footnote butting in to say, “By the way, they just said something racist.”  I guess not everyone reading this book will have the same background knowledge coming in to it, but I wish that the buildup to Babel not being as great as it seems on the surface had been more gradual.  

Despite the book having a bit of a slow middle, I thought the last third of the book was pretty good.  I was up until two in the morning yesterday just to see how it ended! 
I wish that the Hermes Society and the older students who were members got some more character development before they died.  I am glad that Victoire got a little more character development near the end as she helps Robin start the strike.  The progression of the strike and the descriptions of society breaking down as the result of one academic tower no longer maintaining the silver was well done, as was Robin’s final descent into violence that leads up to his death.  At first, I was surprised that the strike ended tragically, with Robin and almost all of his allies in the tower sacrificing themselves to blow it up.  However, it’s still a hopeful ending, and it probably would have been a little too neat of the strike had completely changed society overnight without any bloodshed.
 

I can’t judge this book on how well it works as a piece of historical fiction, as I’m not too familiar with the history of the Opium Wars, and I only speak English.  As a fantasy novel, I can say that I had a fun time reading it, and although I think this book is a little too long for me to ever want to read the entire thing over again, I think it definitely earns four stars from me.  
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