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.

Babel is a beast of a book, but it has a lot to say and it says it well. Kuang creates a complex magic system with strong ties to the history of our own world. Stunning doorstopper.

Dark academia is one of those genres that feels like it's only for a certain group of ppl. But this book is just so much different from the rest. This book is long and starts off a bit slow but it grabbed me quick. I loved the world building and just loved seeing a different side to dark academia. Seriously one of my favorite reads

I think the beginning was very dry and didn’t give us much to latch on to, but by the time we made it to Oxford, I didn’t want to let these characters go. I think the great brilliance of this book is in how the characters’ identities intersect and where they do not. Lettie (a brilliant catalyst for so much of the more subversive and poignant attacks on white “allies”) is a white woman of privilege and fundamentally refuses to grasp the layers of prejudice that she and society as a whole has against her three friends of color. And even Robin is frequently confronted by the privilege of his proximity to whiteness. AND STILL he is seen as a savage, a barbarian, lazy, less-than.

My only real gripes were with the times where the plot seemed to stall - the beginning (pre-Oxford) and the ship back from Canton. But overall, the build up to Robin’s breaking point and the cataclysmic end of the story was brilliantly done.

I also love that we’re kind of sort of set up for a potential sequel…

This book was not at all what I expected. Kuang's writing style is not my favorite- I find it dry. The magic system in this book, while interesting, felt underdeveloped. I felt disconnected from the characters. I wanted to know how Robin actually felt about things. He seemed so distant, as if he was just there and things were happening at him. Even though this book was long, I felt like there was so much left untouched for the sake of plot.
I understand why this book is so popular, but it just didn't hit for me.

With a touch of magic, prestige and academia, Babel explores the dark and insidious nature of Western institutions of power – particularly when it comes to colonisation. It’s a book describing the mounting anger and rage over the inequalities that minorities can experience. Intelligent, expertly written and filled with social injustice, Babel will shake you to your very core as you reach the very last page. I know I definitely had a reading slump afterwards!

Full review in the link below

HUGE sucker for anything relating to dark academia! And this was very much up my alley, and add the UK into the mix SOLD. Very beautifully writing as well with a fun element of magic

The ending was so devastating (spoilers after this) because the last thing Robin thinks of before he sacrifices himself is his mother, which when we start the book he was laying next to her dead body. I weeped.

I wish I had had this book as a teenager. This did more to make me understand imperialism than any history book. I think this should be required reading for high school students but be forewarned, you will all likely cry.

five stars, immediate five stars. I loved the story this one had to tell and I will definitely be picking up more by this author. This is such a great read.

An alternate history in which language truly is magic in the form of silver bars with match-pair words. These have the power to keep the lights on, run carriages more efficiently, and keep structures intact amongst other things.
Despite dense paragraphs that often read like a textbook when talking about language, I was so fully immersed in this story.
I was also so immensely invested in the internal struggle of the main character Robin. He is struggling with this supposedly utopian life, which when he starts to examine closely he notices all of the cracks that lay beneath.

I really enjoyed the Poppy War trilogy and so was super excited to get a chance to read this book. It does not shy away from tough subjects and I found myself enthralled in this new world of Oxford and the Babblers. The way magic and silver and words/translations were used to create wonders was fascinating and I really liked learning about origins of words. It was not a light read most definitely but still good and I will admit I got teary eyed at the end with that final choice of Robin. All the characters were interesting and I kept rooting for that quartet as they had tough choices to make to make the world a better place, even if they had to drag it kicking and screaming.

A really good book and I will definitely read other books that R.F. Kuang writes!

Hot damn, this was a great book. Everyone should read it. I don’t know what else to say. It’s so many intricate things, and yet it’s also a pretty straightforward story. It certainly doesn’t pull any punches. The characters are well-crafted, the pacing is perfect...just great.

Took me longer to read than most fiction, but it’s because the language and the writing is so good that you can’t help but savor it as you read.

And if you like learning languages, you are going to be absolutely thrilled by this book.

Read it. Lisez-le.

This book. Lemme tell you. This book is a masterpiece. It’s sweeping and gorgeous and ambitious. It is dark, intellectual, and mysterious. I saw someone else state that it’s a history lesson and a therapy lesson in one book, and I think that’s the perfect way to describe it.

I’m still super mixed in how I feel about this one. On one hand, I can acknowledge it’s a literary masterpiece in how it was written and comprised. Using etymology as a baseline for everything & the intricate Magic systems complexity + the level of research Kuang needed JUST for that hurts my head thinking about it. It’s a big-brain book for sure.

The themes of colonialism and problems therein were done so well imo. As a reader, I was deeply unsettled about the institution of Babel and what they were doing to Victorie, Robin, and Ramy and students like them. Each of the characters was developed well, even if I found Robin himself a little boring and too passive for my tastes as a main character.

All that said, I don’t know that I “enjoyed” this as much as other books. It was so dense to read all the way through and at times read like a thesis or nonfictional text over the history of language and Babel during this time period and less like a fictional story. It felt like research or work to read it at times, and since I didn’t LOVE Robin as our main character, sometimes I got bored or irritated with him.

Other notes: I didn't LOVE how it ended, though I did LOVE how the author wasn't scared to make some choices.... vague to prevent spoilers haha!

Entertainment wise: 3 ⭐️
But, bc of the brilliance of the story as a whole and all the impressive things it accomplishes: 5 ⭐️

So I guess I’ll settle my official rating as 4 ⭐️

I'm a fan of Rebecca Kuang's other work, so I was excited to start this standalone. Dark Academia is a subgenre I've gravitated towards more and more in recent years, so this one looked to be right up my alley. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. I tried starting this twice and did not make it very far. The world-building was interesting, but that seemed to be the main focus before the cast became interesting. I DNF'd it twice so I'm moving on. Giving it 3 stars because nothing is inherently wrong with the book, it's just not my taste at the moment. Your results may vary.

Truly one of the best books I've read. This story was so full and captivating and heartbreaking. I loved following the MC and his journey through Oxford. I really grew to love Robin. While this story obviously has fantastical elements, it is also obviously rooted in a lot of factual history re: colonialism and racism. After this, I will read everything RF Kuang writes.

I was so bored. I was expecting thiuis to be more excitment and fantasy but i got was a college lecture painted in a boring book.