Reviews

Babel by R.F. Kuang

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kale_42's review against another edition

medium-paced

4.0

I enjoyed this book.
I like the premis of the magic- it's a clever idea that feels new
It kept me interested, I read it resonably fast

Downsides:
The characters were all fairly one dimensional, it was more focused on the themes of the story.
The footnotes didn't add much- I mostly stopped reading them as they tended to overexplain quite obvious points or go into extra history/detail that wasn't important or interesting.
I was hoping that the magic/ silver would lead to some cool worldbuilding stuff but the magic seemed to have no real effect on the world as a whole and it was pretty much acurate to history (as far as I'm aware)
It is slow to start
The writing feels very self-important and annoyed me in places

But despite all the negitives overall I did enjoy the book

hufflepuffer13's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I simply did not enjoy this book. I felt like I accidentally picked up a nonfiction text on the study of languages and was going to fail miserably at the end of subject test.

It didn't get any easier and I only pushed myself to finish to try understand what all the fuss was about.

Content Warnings

cme_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

omarmazin's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Skip the first half of the book. This book is not fantasy academia it’s just academia. The magic system is barely used.

anders_holbaek's review against another edition

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4.0

3,5/5

anonymous_user's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

The use of language and translation as a magic system was incredibly clever and fascinating. The book kept me reading, especially in the second half, and did a good job putting you into the minds of the characters and their moral quandaries. However,

Letty’s purely evil decisions felt a bit heavy-handed and over the top, the lack of nuance made her character less believable.

But overall it was a well written and unique book that makes you think and reflect.

The book feels quite relevant to all of the current student protest movements.