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A review by pages_with_panda
Babel by R.F. Kuang

challenging dark sad 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

4.0

This is no accident; this is a deliberate exploitation of foreign culture and foreign resources.

This was my second RF Kuang book so I may be a bit biased because I loved the last series, but I knew this was going to be deeply layered with soo many themes. I also knew that the ending was going to break my heart...It deals with racism, colonialism, classism, misogyny, and I ended up crying at the end...In short, I loved it. 

The setting is 1828 Oxford. Robin Swift is a Babbler, a student of Babel - a part of Oxford that is dedicated to the art of translation - using words from different languages to create magic. He's Chinese, taken from his country at a young age for the explicit purpose of translating into English . His friends suffered the same fate and yet they're supposed to be grateful for the chance to grow the British empire. 

I fell in love with most of the characters, and the ending was built up in a way that should've been expected from the beginning, but I still had hope and it somehow was still unexpected. 

The magic system was extremely unique, a bit hard to understand but honestly I loved it. It's a super interesting way to bring different languages into a story without using something like latin as the language of spells (which is always the default).  

You can tell Kuang put a lot of thought into this book and I'd definitely recommend it. 

 ‘How strange,’ said Ramy. ‘To love the stuff and the language, but to hate the country.’ ‘Not as odd as you’d think,’ said Victoire. ‘There are people, after all, and then there are things.’

 ‘This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.’ 

Some tags: Dark academia, found family. 
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