A review by elenabndv
Babel by R.F. Kuang

dark emotional tense

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I really don’t know how to review this book. It was a masterpiece from beginning to end. It starts slowly presenting all our protagonists and the development of their relationship in an academic setting but slowly things start to change to the darkest. The writing is excellent. The story exquisite. The amount of research that went in this book is astonishing. People are arguing about the amount of footnotes but 1. what’s written is super interesting, it delves in the history of our world or in the history of the book (answering questions about the past of the characters or about their thoughts etc) and 2. Did those people read Tolstoy ?? He puts an extensive amount of footnotes, here it was pretty reasonable really. I learned so much about colonialism, the world of translation and even on the opium problem in China (curious to read the poppy war now). The characters are lovable (and insufferable) and I love it. But here is a warning for you: prepare yourself to have your heart shattered in pieces cause RF Kuang ate and left no crumbs. 

Although the book is written in Robin’s pov, I am so happy we also saw Victoire, Letty and Ramy’s pov at some point. Even if i was so frustrated with Letty while reading hers. Oh did she break me killing Ramy. But Griffin’s death was the most devastating. Robin would never admit but he was the brother he thought he could never have (the find family trope here 😭).