A review by corallydeer
Babel by R.F. Kuang

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book was such a wild ride. My husband and I read it together and we both kind of struggled to get into the book at first just because it felt a bit slow and like it was dragging, but it picked up so fast in pace around the halfway point. I truly adored both Robin and Ramy as characters and as friends with each other; they felt very realistic to me and I rooted for both of them so much through the entire story. It destroyed me when

Ramy was killed

and we

then got to watch Robin fall apart over it

.

Letty's betrayal

didn't surprise me too much either since I had spent most of the first half of the book wary of her presence within the group. Overall, I really liked the author's writing style and I really appreciated the slow start in the first half of the book because it gave us time to really come to care about the characters and feel all of their ups and downs.

As someone with a history degree I also really appreciated the hard conversations and topics that the book portrayed. It led to lots of conversations with my husband (and my older mother who also read the book with us!) that I don't get many opportunities to have. I look forward to reading some of Kuang's other works after this for sure!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Racial slurs, Violence, and War

Minor: Gun violence, Slavery, Blood, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Child Abuse

(Lovell beats Robin pretty severely for missing a class by accident)

| Death

(Robin's dead mother is next to him when he's saved by Lovell; Lovell recounts Evie's "murder" to sway Robin; Robin reacts to Lovell being dead after he kills him; Ramy, Anthony, and the others are killed in a raid; Robin is forced to think about Ramy and death as part of his torture in jail; Griffin and an old cohort friend of his kill each other; various people die through the course of the Babel strike; Robin and some of the other strikers kill themselves)

| Murder

(Lovell recounts Evie's "murder" to Robin to sway him; Robin kills Lovell during an argument; Griffin and an old cohort friend of his kill each other in a face-off)

| Physical Abuse

(Lovell beats Robin pretty severely for missing a class by accident)

| Racism

(discussion of the abolition of slavery and the prejudices surrounding non-white people [and even just, non-English people]; Ramy and Robin are racially heckled by drunk students; Victoire is sexually harassed in a racial way; clear instances of colored students being othered and looked down on; severe depictions of racism while Robin and his friends are in Canton; discussions at length on the intersection of gender and race)

| Sexism

(Lovell and some of his male friends discuss women's suffrage with disdain; Victoire and Letty discuss not being allowed in a variety of places without chaperones; Lovell admits that Robin's mother was "just a woman" when she was allowed to die; discussion at length of the intersection between race and gender)

| Sexual Harassment

(Victoire and Letty get harassed by other male students who attempt to undress them at a ball)

| Racial Slurs

(Robin, Ramy, and Victoire are all referred to by slurs throughout the book including ch*nk, etc)

| Violence

(violent protests from mill workers who lost their jobs to silver break out; Robin and his friends are violently raided in the hidden library; Robin and Victoire somewhat violently take over Babel; the protesting mill workers join Robin and Victoire's cause and help fight off the English army)

| War

(Robin and his friends discover that Lovell was planning for decades to start war with Canton; the protesting mill workers help Robin and his friends keep the English military away from Babel)

| Classism

(some observations about the wealthier Londoners not having to deal with the same issues as the poorer people, like plague; Griffin explains to Robin that silver could be used to save people around the world but instead goes to luxurious English desires)

| Gun Violence

(Griffin teaches Robin how to use a gun)

| Injury/Injury Detail

(some thieves injured by the wards on Babel's doors; Robin is shot by one of the Babel wards)

| Medical Content

(some discussion of plagues and epidemics)

| Slavery

(mentioned in passing mostly as something that is abolished early in the book)