Review by prawntaar - Babel

prawntaar 's review for:

Babel by R.F. Kuang

4.25

challenging dark emotional 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: Complicated

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The relationships between the main characters were complex and layered, and I found them genuinely interesting. The story kept me hooked from start to finish, and I couldn’t put it down. The writing itself was beautiful, and it’s safe to say I’ll definitely be picking up more of R.F. Kuang’s work in the future.

But I couldn't give this book a 5 star rating for the following (spoiler filled) reasons:

I was really disappointed that the magic system felt more like a McGuffin than a fully realized part of the story. Silverwork is treated like just another commodity in the world, and honestly, you could have swapped it out with almost anything else—money, resources, anything—and still created the same conflict. I did appreciate the theme that "words matter," but the way the magic system was written felt overly heavy-handed, almost like it was trying too hard to hammer that point home.

Another thing that bugged me was the death of Ramy. His death is largely off-screen, which I might have been okay with… except Griffin got this much more dramatic, emotionally charged death scene. It felt like an odd imbalance, especially considering that while Robin and Griffin acknowledge they’re brothers, they never really feel like brothers. Instead, Griffin is more of a handler or mentor to Robin than a sibling, and the whole "you killed my brother" vengeance arc just didn’t land because we never really see that sibling bond develop.

And, okay, maybe this is a small thing, but the fact that we never get to see what was in Griffin’s letter to Robin was honestly a letdown. I don’t know why, but that felt like a missed opportunity and it really bugged me.

Content Warnings