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A review by nomit
Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
I really wanted to love it. It starts out so good! The world-building is fantastic, the characters are believable and the description of alternate-universe Victorian Oxford and student life is very vivid.
The plot is also mostly intriguing ... until you get to the last quarter or so. Man, what a slog. The plot becomes increasingly silly, one of the main characters does an aggravating heel turn and the not-even-subtle anti-colonialist subtext becomes outright preachy and overt.
On top of that, the audio recording does not appear to have had any sort of quality assurance. It's mostly good, but every so often it skips a word or even half a sentence, volume and tone varies from one word to the next and sometimes, without rhyme or reason, a different narrator pronounces Chinese phrases. But then again, sometimes not. It's really mysterious.
The plot is also mostly intriguing ... until you get to the last quarter or so. Man, what a slog. The plot becomes increasingly silly, one of the main characters does an aggravating heel turn and the not-even-subtle anti-colonialist subtext becomes outright preachy and overt.
On top of that, the audio recording does not appear to have had any sort of quality assurance. It's mostly good, but every so often it skips a word or even half a sentence, volume and tone varies from one word to the next and sometimes, without rhyme or reason, a different narrator pronounces Chinese phrases. But then again, sometimes not. It's really mysterious.