I was excited for Babel given how much I loved Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy and her latest with Yellowface, but unfortunately, this one didn’t hit the mark for me. The premise had a lot of potential, but the story felt slow and, at times, boring. The characters didn’t feel particularly well fleshed out, and I struggled to care about their struggles. While the themes around language and colonialism are thought-provoking, the execution often felt heavy-handed. It’s a shame, but this one just didn’t resonate with me.

This book. Holy hell. First of all, Ramy is awesome and the true star. Robin is all of us, but Ramy is who we should aspire to be. With that out of the way, this book was nothing short of incredible. After the 20% mark, it definitely started going in a direction that took me by surprise, and I was just along for the ride because I trusted R.F. Kuang knew what she was doing. And she did indeed. There’s something about the writing, the story, and the pure intellectualism that made me love it and want to immerse myself in this world. Kuang does an excellent job with the sense of deep foreboding from the very beginning of the book and that sense of dread never lets up. There’s excellent character development and dynamics, and Ramy and Robin’s friendship is beautiful, healthy, complex…and a lil romantic 👀 Babel is a tough look at capitalism and empire, but about the power of true solidarity and sacrifice in the face of creating a better world for future generations.

So Babel is one of those books I think you have to be in a mood to read. When this book was announced I was so excited. Dark Academia is hot. What's not to love?! R.F. Kuang is a phenomenal author. The book itself is extremely well polished and readable. It's informative and the world building is outstanding.

However, I just think it wasn't for me. I wasn't...bored? I enjoyed it while reading it, but if I put it down to go do something it would take me days, weeks, to pick it back up and then I had to remind myself what was going on. Maybe it's just not for me...right now, but Ill try again in the future.

Amazing, R.F. Kuang is an auto buy author for me. She never disappoints! Her writing is always impeccable. I love that she branched out into dark academia.

Babel by R.F. Kuang is a captivating and emotionally charged novel that is a perfect fit for readers who appreciate complex, dark academia, and are drawn to stories that explore the intricate relationships between language, power, and colonialism, with a particular interest in the struggles of identity, loyalty, and revolution.

Beautifully written and thick with academic, historical substance, Babel is an intense and uncomfortable read but an instant classic.

As R.F. Kuang's most ambitious work yet, Babel stands apart from other dark academic fantasies out there. It almost needs its own genre with how deftly Kuang melds real-world history and linguistics with the not-quite fantasy, silver tech-filled world of Babel.

I didn't expect a happy ending, but I wasn't prepared for how much sadness and anger I felt for all main characters, especially Robin. All of them had experienced such tragedy and systemic racism that continued to haunt them no matter how hard they worked or how much they "impressed" their colonizing oppressors. Still, there were moments of unbridled joy among the group, which kept me reading through the horrendous behavior of all the white characters.

That said, Babel isn't for everyone. It makes bold statements about colonialism and systemic racism. It's also partly written like an academic text, which can turn off more casual fantasy readers. Luckily, I'm an academic and love reading and learning, so I greatly enjoyed Kuang's footnotes.

This book took me way too long to read, but I remain in awe of Kuang's brilliant storytelling in Babel.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperVoyager for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Babel is set in the late 1820s and follows a group of students who attend a prestigious university, Oxford, and experience various degrees of societal injustices. This book tackles what dismantling a system of oppression and how institutions play into that system.

Language plays a major role in this book, as the students' majors are translation majors, though in different languages. Silver is also quite important, as it is a mechanism for the well developed magic system, I think that the inclusion and development of the importance of translation and language within the novel is very profound and interesting. R.F. Kuang really does an amazing job in her elaboration of how systems of oppression and colonization have an impact on language and translation.

The characters are very well developed and have depth. Each character of the main cast has a purpose not only to one another but to the overall plot and message of the story. Each character had a purpose to the story. There are so many layers to the characters that I could delve into, but I do not really want to spoil this.

This is a longer book with a pretty slow start, however, there is so much information and layers with everything that the end makes it worth the slower beginning.

Absolutely loved this one! It was the perfect blend of fantasy, historical fiction and dark academia, and such an interesting blend of linguistics and commentary on colonisation, as well as the class divide within academia. While a long and detailed read, I think it was necessary to tell the story of Babel and to build the world it exists inside. The level of care and detail put into creating this alternate setting of Oxford in the 19th century is very apparent and makes for a vivid and gritty world, where language, racism, cultural identity and colonialism create the heavy theme of where our main character, Robin, truly belongs. Is it in Babel as a translator for silver-working, or with the Hermes Society, an organisation dedicated to sabotaging the practice of silver-working? As a Chinese boy whisked off to London by Professor Lovell, who teaches him multiple languages in preparation of sending him to Babel, his character arc over the course of the story is masterfully done and showcases the multitude of emotions that comes with grappling with self-identity and making impossible decisions. I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone with an interest in etymology or academia as a whole.

Holy... This book was in no way what I was expecting. I went into Babel slightly blind. I knew roughly that it was a book about scholars in Oxford pursuing language and translation, but I was not ready for the explosive middle. While I'm glad that there was some world-bulding reserved for the footnotes strewn throughout the pages, the amount of lectures in the beginning of the book were hard to get trough at times., While I understand why they're present, and they do help the story along, I had trouble focusing on the reading. The last fourth of the book felt very subdued compared to the action/ high stakes in the middle, and understandably so. But with the normal buildup before the final chapters in the majority of other reads, this felt very lacking. All together I did enjoy the read and the thought provoking issues it brought up.

I actually didn't care for this one. I was so excited when it came out, but the overall story just really fell flat for me.

"Violence shows them how much we're willing to give up. Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock."

holy moly, this was excellent. but also ngl I kind of want to gatekeep this book from everyone whose first/only language is english.

R. F. Kuang's tremendous modern classic is everything I want from a book.
The alternate history worldbuilding is expertly devised to be so close to true that the world feels instantly real. The characters are endearing, even in their faults, and are three-dimensional and complicated in wonderful ways.
Much like in the novel Yellowface, Kuang uses fictional recounting of all-too-real events to paint the perfect picture of how racism, colonialism, and greed act upon the world in horrific ways, and the courage it takes to stand up to such overwhelming forces.
This book was practically perfect. I'm recommending it everywhere and giving it a spot in my top twenty all-time favorites.

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R. F. Kuang is excellent but does not have a happy ending; the empire is brought down by dying in the process of destroying the center of power, which makes a lot of sense thematically but was painful to read. The characters were, I felt, subordinate to the anti-colonialist plot, but I couldn't help wanting the central characters to survive and thrive by overcoming the colonialism in which they were trapped despite knowing that wasn't the point of the book. There's a lot in there to think about. I need to read something cheery now.

While Babel is quite a long book, it flew by. Fantastic worldbuilding and great diversity. I actually liked this book a lot more than the Poppy Wars series.

A very interesting and detailed read. Did have to keep a little notebook to keep up as there were a lot of moving parts.

I forgot to leave a review for this, but I really enjoyed it! It's been out for ages, so I won't say much more than I need to for my star rating. <3

Writing Style
Babel reads like an academic text. Told in third person, following Robin as the main character, there are a number of characters in this book who are built thoroughly. In addition to his storyline, there are also footnotes and interludes.

The footnotes add additional historical context, translations, pronunciations and details about the life of characters that are not the main focus in the book. Considering the truths that they uncovered, they had a purpose: to reveal the layers of propaganda in the empire. They had information that Robin was not privy to and hence could not integrate into his narrative. In the audiobook, they were narrated by a different voice and that helped make them distinct from the rest of the story.

Babel is divided into five books. Book 3 has some unforgettable scenes and the best of masterful writing: Robin waiting for one of the Babel professors after being detained, Ramy’s insight into Robin’s actions, Robin’s confrontation with Professor Lovell towards the end of this part.

What will it take for the people to rise up against injustice? Will a secret society’s attempts to correct wrongs be enough to bring the wave of change that the world needs? How do you rally one country’s people for another? These are just some of the grand questions that Babel answers through its characters and setting in the last two books.

World building
Babel sets out to do a lot. It questions the status-quote while succinctly portraying the dawning of understanding in Robin about his origins, Lovell’s experiment to bring him up, the way his language and people are being exploited and the role Babel plays in the existence of the empire and continued oppression of the people. Through Letty, Babel highlights how people, coming from a place of privilege, cannot relate to the struggle that fellow scholars of foreign origin – Robin, Ramy and Victoire – face, even after developing an intimate friendship with them. Through certain events in the book, Babel’s world slowly expands from the institute to China and political negotiations.

Babel is grounded well in our own history too. Industrial revolution, morse code, invention of photography, the opium monopoly, the increasing control of the British in Asia through the East India Trading company, the proliferation of English in the colonies… All of these transpired. The integration of silverwork to speed up some of the events was shrewd and brilliant.

Many thanks to the publisher for a copy of the book for an honest review.

A much detailed version of this review was first posted to my blog. Read about:
- Each of the characters
- Education in Babel
- What Babel offered on Translation

Brilliant. That's what this book is but I shouldn't be surprised since R.F. Kuang wrote it (hum hum one of my favorite authors hum hum).

Now, I do agree the beginning is slow to get into but if persevere and read it until the end, you won't be disappointed. If you're open to changing the way you think or perhaps hearing a new perspective, Babel is definitely not a book you want to miss.

I do believe in my heart and soul that people should stop looking away just because they know if they look, it's not going to be pretty. But cowardice and hypocrisy is never going to change things for the better and we all know we could always do better in some area of our lives. Opening our eyes to the problem and facing our fears is the first step to a better world, imo.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling about my personal thoughts and get back to the book. Babel left me in tears. The ending? Wow. Didn't expect it and it is one of those endings that stick in your memory for a really long time.

Cannot recommend this book enough (even thoughhh Poppy War is still my favorite).

I truly ope R.F. Kuang has many more books in stores for us in the future as they are always amazing!!

I absolutely loved this book. The writing was so fantastic. I loved the setting, the characters and the whole story arc.
The author is a true wordsmith. It’s a long read but I think this story requires many pages to flush out the storyline and the characters.
I have recommended this too so many people.
What an epic read!

Babel sets up quite a world and develops characters very well, but the pace was agonizingly slow for me. I see why it is popular with many as it is beautifully written and imaginative, but for me it was work to read and I couldn't fall into the world and just enjoy it. It did pick up towards the end, but it was a little too late for me. I did enjoy the characters and the importance of languages and cultures it told.