I did not enjoy. It was a slug. If it wasn’t for my inability to put a book down once I’ve started it, I would never have finished. I found myself skimming to get through it.

An inventive, biting, melancholy tale. I’ll not soon forget it. Kuang’s writing is so self-assured. The pacing in this novel is slower than the poppy war trilogy but that seems by design.

r.f. kuang has a writing style that will captivate you and then destroy you with how devastating it can be. it’s so good but it hurts.

The ethereality of the characters brings surreal reading experience. The novel distills real world issues in a fantasy setting, perfected with archetypical characters. The author managed to mold the story around the characters with their own preposterous point of view, and created something otherworldly, yet perfectly reflecting all the problems and struggles in our real world.

Thank you for your review. You took the words out of my mouth and articulated them better than I could have.

R.F. Kuang’s Babel revels in the depth of its details. The richness of language is explored to dizzying depths within its magic system (silver-work), broad social and economic trends are deftly dissected, and the horrors of colonialism (and they are horrors) are shown to the reader with cold clarity. After finishing Babel, I had a deeper understanding of peak British colonialsim, with the fictional characters serving as firm grounding that gave image and texture to what I previously had only read in textbooks (and then only as an adult, as my public education didn’t cover colonialism at all). However, Babel is not a novel in the normal sense of the word. Its characters, whether good or evil, are solely and wholly defined by their reaction to colonial society. Some support it, others fight against it, and most are silently complict, but that is the entirety of who these characters are. Details are only added to make sure every character archetype is present: the enslaved or indentured, the lone minority in power that asks students to tough it out, the wicked elite that believes anyone who isn’t them isn’t human. Characters far more often react to events than instigate them, and what few personality traits they have are subsumed by their race, sex, and socioeconomic class Maybe that’s the point of Babel. There is a pervasive sense in the novel that the system perpetuates itself, that everyone is simply trapped within it. And that makes for an interesting essay. Unfortunately, I just don’t think it makes a compelling novel. The characters are too ethereal, too focused on serving their roles in the story, to properly emphathize with or root for. This is a morality play wrapped in the guise of a fantasy novel, and it sorely lacks the nuance and complexity of well written characters with agency to change the plot.

I have been telling people about this book since before I even finished it. It is absolutely incredible, heart breaking, endearing, earth shattering. I cannot say enough about it. The author has captured the intended purpose so well, the ending brought me to tears and is a mirror of our world today. I cannot say enough about this piece. I read it online and I will be getting a hard copy so I may keep it forever. Thank you

The power of words and worlds collide in this exciting story of hopelessness and hope.

Such beautiful work. Obsessed with how academically rich but just as equally engaging and personal this work is. I love reading books which educate me as well as disconnect me from our reality and this amazing story did exactly that

Heartbreaking while also cathartic. Reads like butter, smooth and savory and lingering on the palate. Robin, Ramy, Victoire will be with me forever.