greljo76 's review for:

Babel by R.F. Kuang

4.5

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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This was a great book. As a lover of languages I loved all the etymology, the academic stuff around language, words, meaning etc. I ate it up and a magic system based on this was right up my alley. I love the fact that the knowledge of language is power. That is not very common in literature or history. Very often powerful subjects are maths, chemistry, physics and more in that chategory. As a language geek and a maths dummy, I of course love this powershift. Outside of this, the story, plot and characters were all great. And of course the whole message about imperialism, colonialism and racism and how it has impacted the world, and still is,  is more important now than ever. Learning from the past is crucial. So, yes, a great book.
The reason for the retracted 0,5 stars is that I wish the author did a little less tell and a little more show and had more trust in her readers. We get it, we do not always need it so thouroghly explaned.
I would also have liked a little more fleshed out characters. I loved some and hated some, but didn't really know them as well as i would have liked. But I still cried so they got under my skin anyway. All in all, a must read