This is the best Dark Academia I have ever read. The system of magic in this book is wonderfully fascinating. This story was beautiful and heartbreaking.

Ambitious, ingenious, intelligent, and beautifully crafted. I really and truly LOVED this book.

There’s been hype around this for months now. And I’m one to typically shy away from those—mainly because I end up not enjoying them. I admit, though, this one had me curious.

Kuang is a master. She can develop an entire world and story, put the characters through hell and in doing so, manages to develop them flawlessly.

This is so distinctive and imaginative. I devoured every page.

I cannot wait for more from this author. She’s easily the best writer I’ve happened upon in the last 10 years.

Learning another language is hard work for most of us, and I’ve always been a little jealous of kids who grew up bilingual and people who have the knack for picking up new languages. It’s not just the memorization, which I think of as a feat on its own. It’s also the ability to get one’s brain to push a native language to the side enough to let in new grammar, idioms, word order, and cultural context. That first language always leaves a big imprint. I’ve never really been able to get past the stage of translating in my head whenever I’ve attempted to pick up a new language. I’ve always dreamed in English. The protagonists of Babel, or The Necessity of Violence, by R.F. Kuang, however, have the knack for language. Once their linguistic talents were discovered, our protagonists were scooped up from around the British Empire and sent to Oxford University, to take part in the multilingual machine that fuels the whole operation. Word nerds will love this highly original historical fantasy.

Robin Swift was rescued from death by cholera (which killed his family) in Canton by a wealthy Oxford don. His early fluency in Cantonese and English gave Professor Lovell enough confidence in Robin’s talents to take him to England, teach him Latin, Greek, and Mandarin, and eventually send him to the Royal Institute of Translation at Oxford University. The Royal Institute controls the silver-work trade. In this version of history, silver has the ability to transform the inherent instability of translations to make ships go faster, heal the sick, ensure the safety of roads, and do so many of the things that keep the British Empire ahead of the rest of the world. At the Royal Institute, Robin and the rest of his cohort—Ramy, from Bengal; Victoire, from Haiti via France; and Letty, the sole British student in their group—learn to trace etymologies along with studying the vocabulary and grammar of their designated languages to create the powerful match-pairs of words that fuel the silver.

Robin has had doubts about the British Empire and his role in it almost since he met Lovell. These doubts grow in the face of the casual racism he and, later, the brown members of his cohort experience constantly in England. Robin also grows up starved of love in Lovell’s house. There are strong hints that Lovell is Robin’s biological father and yet the man is incapable of praising Robin or showing him any sign of affection whatsoever. Worse, Lovell firmly believes in the superiority of the white race and is violently prejudiced against Asians. The only reason he learned Mandarin and Cantonese—and fathered children with Chinese women—was because the Royal Institute required increasingly diverse match-pairs because the English language notoriously adds new vocabulary whenever its speakers meet a new language. Robin’s questions about the injustice he sees everywhere around him only grow louder as he learns more about what the Royal Institute and the British government have done and are doing to preserve their preeminence.

As Robin and his cohort get closer to graduation, the novel shifts from Babel to The Necessity of Violence. More people than just Robin, Ramy, and Victoire are unhappy about the status quo. They are contacted by members of the Hermes Society, a group of disgruntled students and former students of the Royal Institute who want to change the world. They want justice. They want equality. The problem is that they are tackling entrenched, systemic inequality and they can’t decide if the best way to affect change is by persuasion or through violence. Robin et al. waver between peaceful protest and violent acts of sabotage for much of the book, until betrayal and events that look an awful lot like the start of the Opium Wars kick off. They can’t go on among Oxford’s dreaming spires with clear consciences. Something has to be done.

Some readers might find Babel a little preachy at times. Even though I agree with a lot of the arguments made here about redistribution of wealth, anti-racism, gender equality, and dismantling monopolies, there were some sections of dialogue I skimmed over. That said, there was a lot I loved in this book. I loved the tricky character development and psychological realism. I adored Kuang’s reimagined Oxford and magical system. I was absolutely hooked by the sections that discussed with relish the intricacies of language. As I said, word nerds are going to enjoy the hell out of this book. I also think that readers who see injustice in the real world around them will find a lot to relate to here and, maybe, find some of the gumption Robin finds to make a stand and foster change for the better.

So radically different from The Poppy War series but with the same alternative history vibe running through it. Absolutely fascinating.

As a HUGE fan of The Poppy War series, I was hesitantly optimistic about this one. I didn't want to be disappointed! The premise seemed heady, but I did a summer program at Oxford so that tipped me over the edge to just dive in. And I'm so glad I did! I will follow Rebecca Kuang into any revolution.

I am writing this with tears in my eyes and a massive weight sitting on my chest. Maybe this is not the most encouraging way to start a review, but it is the absolute truth: saying that you will come out of reading this book unscathed would be a lie. But I think that it's what makes this book so special, so important.

Babel takes you into the world of 1800s British academia, deeply intertwined with colonization, and through many twists and turns it opens your eyes to the importance of resistance and revolution; but more than that, Babel is a story that’s real, a story that’s raw, and as such it will make you feel EVERYTHING. R.F. Kuang’s writing is sublime and she showed incredible prowess in creating a cast of characters that are so incredibly authentic. Countless were the times when I thought, “this is just real human behavior”, regardless of whether I agreed with it or not. I could go on for days about how excellent this book was, but I don’t think words will ever do it justice. What I can say is that I will keep thinking about it for a very long time; no, this is a book that I believe I will carry with me forever. I can only say thank you to the author for crafting such an important story.

P.S. This book will hurt you. It’s just the way it is. But if any of you loves languages half as much as I do, then it will also make you very happy. The little language nerd in me couldn’t stop smiling throughout the book as I learned so many new things. Just another reason why this book is an absolute masterpiece.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!!

This is one of those books that while reading I become fascinated and inspired by the genius of a mind that is behind this writing. I want to be in this story just as this story is in me now and always will be. And as a student, I want more knowledge. Like I said, inspiring. The magic of language.

Robin Swift was born in Canton, China. He lived there long enough to know the language easily and then, when he was about to die from a sickness, he was moved to England by a man promising him the world. He learned Greek and Latin while studying his own language, Chinese. In doing all this, he became prepared for a life at Oxford at the school for translation. Where language is not just studied, but used to change the world.

This is the best Dark Academia I have ever witnessed. Along with a dangerous secret society and a world on the cusp of revolution. I loved this book and I cannot recommend this enough!

Out August 23, 2022!

I usually try to open my reviews with a TLDR, but I am completely unable to come up with any kind of a pithy blurb for this book. “It was excellent” is the best I can do for a review summary.

This is an alternate history book, set in the 1830s, and belongs firmly in the Dark Academia subgenre. The main character is a boy from Canton (more properly Guangzhou). He was orphaned by an illness that swept through the city, but a visiting Oxford professor decided to bring him to England as his ward and train him to enroll in Oxford’s prestigious (and fictional) Institute of Translation. He takes the name of Robin Swift, and we’re off.

The British Empire, after victory over Napoleon, is the giant of the world stage. In Rebecca Kuang’s version of things, Britain’s global dominance is in large part due to their dominance of “translation magic.” Spells inscribed on silver bars make British ships faster, British guns more accurate, British steam engines more efficient, and prop up a global empire. These spells require a deep, deep understanding of both English and a different language. The magical potential of the languages more familiar to the British (French, German, Latin, etc) have largely been tapped out. This is the reason Robin was brought to England and prepared for education at Oxford; his knowledge of Mandarin makes him a literal strategic asset to the British.

While at Oxford, Robin forms a very tightly knit relationship with the others of his cohort. Ramy (from Calcutta) and Victoire (from Haiti) have the same kind of personal history as Robin. The fourth of the cohort, Letty, is English, the daughter of an admiral. All four of them are non-traditional students at Oxford, but translation is too vital to the Empire to be fussed over little things like skin color or gender if the person in question is a talented linguist.

This book has a great deal to say about all the things one might expect when reading a book from the perspective of a minority living in 19th century Oxford. Imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, class: all of these things are pretty heavily covered in this book. All four of the principal characters face discrimination (though Robin and Ramy are male, Letty is English, and Robin can pass for white if one doesn’t look too closely. Victoire gets it from all sides). Historically, this takes place in the buildup towards the First Opium War, which is about as morally unambiguous a conflict as ever there was. (China won’t let the British sell narcotics? The audacity! How dare they!) Robin loves it at Oxford, but he is also faced with a growing awareness of what exactly the British Empire is, and the role he’s being groomed to play within it. There is, obviously, conflict.

There’s no romance at all in this, which I found kind of refreshing. I kept expecting it, because I’m as vulnerable as anyone to the “but you have to have a romance plotline!” assumption. The book absolutely does not need it, and is stronger for not having it shoehorned in.

This is very different from Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, which is much more high-fantasy. Magic is in the background, but it’s much more subtle. Central as it is to the Empire, it’s much less central to the story. Robin is no soldier like Rin; action scenes are few and far between. And though this deals with many of the same themes as the Poppy War, it’s certainly not grimdark. Some of the advance info compares it to *Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell*, and that’s a reasonable comparison. The language isn’t as dense and Austen-esque as JS&MrN, but this is still a tome. Kuang spends a lot of time on the intricacies of language and translation; I’ve no doubt many will find it dull. If you didn’t like the Appendices to LotR or the footnotes to JS&MrN (Kuang also uses lots of footnotes, and they’re the *best*) you might find this challenging.

Where this *is* similar to the Poppy War is in the overall tone. This isn’t a happy book. Robin & company are very aware of just how unassailably powerful the British Empire is. I can also tell you that Kuang evidently likes her books to include a distinct “before” and “after” moment (if you’ve read book 1 of the Poppy War, you know precisely what I’m talking about). When the stakes and tone change, they *change*.

This book deserves to be a classic. It’s a masterpiece, and it comes out August 23rd.

I had to give myself time to write this review. I still don't know where to start, but. I shall try.

First off, Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution is the most challenging book I've read in years. It kept me engaged, entertained, but most importantly, it made me think. In a most uncomfortable, most painful kind of way. This is not an easy read.

Second, I loved it. There are no simple ways to say this but I loved it. I loved it because I'm biracial myself, because I am a polyglot, because I'm a foreigner in foreign land in a foreign skin; I loved it because I love languages and I love works in translation. Babel appealed to all of that, made me seen in all of that, and I just couldn't give it up.

Babel was also painful. The characters live through painful experiences, so lacerating at times that I just had to put it down because it's too much. I couldn't take it. I cried, and there's no shame in admitting it. But, as everyone who has read it until the very last page, you just know that you have to. You need to finish Babel.

Did I know how it was going to end like? Perhaps. Still didn't make it any easier.

Babel is also intensely political. There's rage, grief, and a critical voice that actively looks at the state of the world and thinks, "how did we come to this?" Super researched, so many small details that make you smile in either glee or disbelief. Impeccable. Also, the footnotes were just lovely. Just hoping that they will be placed at the end of the page instead of the end of the book in the print version, as I just prefer to look at them right away when I'm reading.

Anyhows. I have not read Kuang's Poppy Wars yet (a sin, I know), but I had no doubt that she was going to kill it here too. She is just that good. Honestly, it's also a bit terrifying how good she is. Just. An amazing writer, one that shook me to my own core.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Definitely, one that just goes straight for the jugular.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Voyager for sending me a digital ARC of this book in return for my honest thoughts.

Babel is a long book, and some readers may balk at the length and heft. The author spares no details, even when it comes to university lectures. While there are a few places where perhaps this could have been trimmed a little, it all contributes to the atmosphere and to the reader’s understanding.

And that’s the only tiny bit of potential criticism I have for this book. Now that it’s out of the way, I can focus on the reasons why this could be my top read of 2022, why I believe this should be required high school reading.

First, R. F. Kuang has crafted a compelling story with a sympathetic protagonist and an intriguing plot. And this is where I’ll defend the choice to include a lot of details about class lectures and Robin’s studies. Sometimes, those moments almost obscure the plot so you’re surprised by developments. You can be so immersed in the learning part that it feels like a shock when something happens. And this matters, because in that respect, you’re sharing Robin’s experience. He’s had his feelings dismissed for so long and he’s under constant pressure to perform or be left without a home or revenue. Consequently, when things happen that throw his life off course, he’s stunned and has to process those things. It takes time to pull him out of one mindset so he can evaluate all the information. That’s realistic, and perhaps helps explain some of the decisions he makes along the way. There’s no abrupt shift from compliant dependent to radical opponent. Robin’s experiences unfold over time to lead him to the conclusion.

“…he felt also a thrum of excitement at the thought that perhaps his unbelonging did not doom him to existing forever on the margins, that perhaps, instead, it made him special.”

In short, the character development is meticulous and believable. Robin is not a hero from the start. He makes mistakes. And self-forgiveness is as much a part of his journey as learning to take pride in his heritage and where his allegiances lie.

Any word nerd will love the detailed information about word origins and meanings and how language changes over time. Without knowing anything about the author, it was evident they worked in translation. The communication theory student in me reveled in these parts of the book, because language and the evolution of language is so intrinsically connected to culture and heritage. So many take it for granted and don’t realize words and languages are powerful, and their power can be used for good and for evil. In our era of casual speech, with words thrown around online only to be deleted or retracted later because they were careless or harmful or got someone canceled, this book is a stunning reminder of the value of language and precision when we use language to communicate.

This book is about so many things. It’s about colonization. It’s about racism. It’s about slavery. It’s about free trade. It’s about identity, and what makes you who you are. Is it biology or your environment? It’s about autonomy and the right to self government. It’s about sexism. It’s about forces resisting enlightenment needed to deliver mankind to a new era, to equality. It’s about an individual’s hopes and dreams weighed against the greater good and the choices people sometimes have to make to take a stand for what’s right instead of doing what’s convenient.

Babel doesn’t sugarcoat the archaic and harmful views of colonizers who were openly racist and pro slavery and sexist. Yes, it’s an alternate history, but every page is infused with all-too realistic attitudes that fueled the British Empire and perpetuated harmful practices that destroyed millions while they raped and pillaged whole continents.

“Only men like them could justify the exploitation of other peoples and countries with clever rhetoric, verbal ripostes, and convoluted philosophical reasoning. Only men like them thought this was still a matter of debate.”

It’s not far-fetched to say that within the pages of this alternate history with magical elements that we touch on the reasons 9/11 happened, for the colonizers always claim they’re going to save the “savages” from themselves but in reality want to control resources without respecting the rights of sovereign nations to make their own laws and govern their own lands. Consider, even the earliest Americans held two contradictory beliefs in their heads, for they opposed the British Empire’s unfair practices and presumption that they should dictate laws and taxes on American soil, but they accepted the colonization of America, the displacement of Indigenous persons. They believed in an earlier variation of what was later called manifest destiny, in their God-given right to rule the land and expand their influence.

Why should this book be required high school reading? It presents an unfiltered view of how harmful colonization is. It’s the view we never talked about in school. Colonization happened, white people ended up in X, Y, Z places, these things happened, here we are. But how many ever learned about how the racism behind classifications of Hutus and Tutsis that fueled conflict between these groups led to the Rwandan genocide.

How many kids learn in schools that the reason we don’t send troops to stop genocide in Rwanda but intervene for less in Afghanistan has to do with oil interests? That we’re still living in a world that governs foreign policy by financial benefit, and we’ll turn our backs on anyone if we won’t profit from our intervention? How many learn the truths highlighted in videos that peel back the layers and examine the dangers of colonization and how it’s affecting us now? How many understand why countries subjugated under British rule for centuries are fighting for reparations now?


How nations still perpetuate harmful colonization practices today?


They say history is written by the victors. And that’s precisely why the history taught in school will never prevent future atrocities. It never addresses the root motives behind actions and the damage inflicted.

Babel does. Oh, yes, it’s fiction. It’s an alternate history. But its roots stem from an all-too-real world. The first time I visited the U.K., I was walking through Hyde Park and a man asked me where I was from. I answered, and his reply was, “Oh, the colonies.” How quaint. How patronizing. How very provincial and elitist of him. These attitudes linger today, they’ve formed the fabric of English society. And they spread beyond England to North America and other parts of the globe, feeding generations of people who believe they’re superior simply because they’re white.

Babel is a staggering reminder that we’ve made a bloody big mess of the world and have a responsibility to stop harmful patterns from continuing and clean our mess up. It’s a reminder that all too often, it’s the oppressed who take the stand, because they have nothing less to lose, or because those who should take responsibility won’t.

For me, several factors contribute to my evaluation of a book, my decision that it rises above and should be declared a great work. Am I compelled to keep turning the pages? Yes, into the wee hours of the morning. Does it linger after the last page? I finished days ago and here I am, 1,300 words into a review that’s part essay, part rant, part impassioned plea for this book to get the attention that it so richly deserves.

Some books are pure entertainment, and we need them. Others endure, because they say something about the human condition, about society, about our past and our future, that must be acknowledged and not forgotten. Something that should prompt transformation. And this is a transformative work. It’s a book that should be a catalyst to a new age of understanding, about white privilege, about the power dynamics at play in global trade, about subjugation and oppression, about racism … even about real friendship, for there’s another essay about Letitia (Letty) Price that should be written.

Some books tell great stories. Others have amazing characters. There are also books that have layers of wisdom infused throughout their pages. Babel has it all. And for that reason, this could easily be my top read of 2022. It’s a book that’s going to whisper its secrets to me for years to come, and I hope its whispers reach enough to fuel meaningful change in our world.

This book as a person of color made me feel a kind of anger that a book has never made me felt. In a good way this book is a clear example of dark academia done right and is a good example of decolonizing the genre. Excited for everyone to read it and see the excellence of this book

Wow. Wow. Wow. Seriously. I have no words. This book is a feat and I feel smarter reading this. It’s indescribable and utterly brilliant.

An illustrious dark academia novel, BABEL by R. F. Kuang is yet another masterpiece. It is a love letter to those who study language, the nuances of it, and the connections between words that bind us together. It is also a sharp, piercing silver blade that exposes a dark undercurrent of colonization, racism, and more amongst higher education.

As with THE POPPY WAR trilogy, Kuang pulls no punches. This book absolutely earns it’s subtitle of “The Necessity of Violence” in the later half of the book. It is not written for shock factor, but rather in an unflinching honesty that readers will find they cannot look away.

A truly unique and thought-provoking book.

This review is so difficult to write because there were so many themes to unpack in this masterpiece. I’m a reader not a writer. ANYWAY, as I was reading a couple of reviews, someone said that if you were not angry while reading Babel, you were doing it wrong. And they are absolutely right. The amount of “fuck you” annotations I wrote was unbelievable.

This is not your typical dark academia fantasy book, like I had thought when I started, which was why it took me so long to gather my thoughts. We follow our group of babblers who try to navigate their way in Britain, a country that dismisses and patronizes the people whose languages and labor they strive on. I got so teary reading some parts, not because they were necessarily sad, but because I related so much to these characters. I loved our found family, our group of marginalized students finding solace in one another. How quickly they grabbed onto one another after being alone for so long.

The amount of research RF Kuang must have done for this book has my mind blown. There were so many languages and it wasn’t just phrases tossed around, their linguistics, translations, and history were broken down and just added to the depth Babel already had. It was beautiful.

"From award-winning author R.F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation - also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working - the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars - has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide...

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?"

Oxford and a certain Susanna Clarke retort? Yes please!

“He delighted when common words were, unexpectedly, formed from other words he knew. Hussy was a compound of house and wife. Holiday was a compound of holy and day. Bedlam came, implausibly, from Bethlehem. Goodbye was, incredibly, a shortened version of God be with you.”

This book is chock full of interesting tidbits like those. I am thrilled to know the origins of the word “hussy.” That is not sarcasm. I predict there will be a fair amount of polarization regarding how readers feel about the philological (yes I had to look this word up) education they receive from this book. Personally, I freaking LOVED it. So much of it blew my mind, and this is clearly something Kuang is passionate about. I have read a few reviews from readers who were……not as appreciative. And that’s fair- this book will not be everyone’s cuppa (IYKYK). If you’re looking for nerdy alternate historical fiction with a lot of violence and a glimmer of fantasy- you’ll like this. If you like dark academia and social commentary, you’ll like this. If you’re looking for Harry Potter, look elsewhere. Do not open this book with expectations of a full-on fantasy with elaborate world-building, wands, and cute and/or dangerous magical creatures. Also- stop looking for Harry Potter have you learned nothing?!

I was glad I read this for the first time on my Kindle- I did a lot of looking up words (such as "vituperation") and history (like the Chartist uprisings), and the dictionary/Wikipedia functions were very helpful in quickly getting me up to speed. It’s something to keep in mind when you’re considering which edition(s) to buy. I still preordered one or more physical special editions. Anyway.

“‘Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?’”

I really really hope writing this book was a means of some amount of catharsis (from the Greek katharos, meaning pure, and kathairein, meaning cleanse) for Kuang. She’s made no secret (it’s literally in her Goodreads review) that this book is both a love letter and a break up note to Oxford, and both feelings come through very effectively. The bluntness of the writing is, at times, completely breathtaking. At around 70%, I started physically and audibly reacting to the story. Gasps of shock, screams of frustration, putting the book down and walking away, coming back in seconds, threats of throwing my Kindle across the room- Kuang does not fuck around and she cares not a whit for any of our feelings. It’s amazing.

“‘But that’s precisely the devil’s trick,’ Robin insisted. ‘This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.’”

COME. ON. That quote. I’m not going to expound upon it much more here. Kuang has thoughts on colonialism and they are not subtle. I know a lot of readers will say this book is heavy-handed. It is, but I’d argue that this is intentional and this book specifically wants you to feel uncomfortable. Sit with it. There are books that lack subtlety and are clunky and obnoxious, but that’s not Babel. Babel is meticulous and detailed and unapologetic, and the writing is amazing and this book will piss you off from start to finish. To be clear, I mean that positively.

Is it perfect? No. There are some word choices that I feel are borderline anachronistic (“feminism” and “narco-military” are not terms I think were used in the early 1800s but I am NOT AN EXPERT), and these were jarring to me. And while I really liked and rooted for the main characters and appreciated their vastly different respective arcs, I didn’t fall in love with any of them. This book is full of nerdery and story-telling, and I think it was less successful with forming fully realized characters.

SO. The TL/DR here is:
This book is incredible, it feels like it is VERY personal to Kuang, and while I always have a few minor quibbles, ultimately this is a book I would DEFINITELY recommend. But only to those that would enjoy nerdy ramblings on languages, dark academia, and alternate histories that aren’t wildly fantastical.

As soon as a hardcover copy arrives on my doorstep, I will be handing it off to my father to read immediately. He's British. It should make for some interesting conversation.

Thanks so much to Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the review copy!

Thank you to NetGalley for the E-ARC
I was unbelievably excited when I received this e-book. I have heard so many wonderful things about this author and own the entire Poppy wars trilogy. This book is a bit different than the typical book I usually read. This book focuses quite a bit on imperialism and language as well as a huge focus on race in academics. There are so many complicated themes and issues throughout the story I highly recommend picking it up as I could never explain it good enough!

Babel is amazing! It's such a sharp and critical commentary on racism, colonialism, and imperialism in academia. The story might be fantasy, but the undertones are still very true to present-day academia. In particular to the storytelling, I love the characters and each felt like nuanced and distinct characters. There's so much more to say on this and so much to unpack, but please give it a read. This book gets all the stars from me!

Please stop whatever you’re doing and preorder BABEL by R. F. Kuang.

This is a stand-alone dark academia novel split into five parts. We follow Robin Swift, who was stolen away from his home in China to study at Oxford’s Institute of Translation, known as Babel.

This book has a familiar dark academia setting, but approaches it from an anti-colonialist mindset which truly sets it apart from other books in the genre.

The first three parts of this book help contextualize Robin’s life and the role that Babel plays throughout the world.

And then we get to part 4 😳 In part 4, everything speeds up in pace and darkens in tone and you will not want to leave your seat until you know how it ends. It breaks your heart again and again, and then you think nothing else could go wrong, it subverts all of your expectations.

I know many people cried while reading this book, but I personally think I skipped straight past crying and went to emotional numbness because crying wasn’t enough.

The writing style was easy to follow and the pacing was perfect. I’m glad that Kuang chose to write this as a stand-alone because I think a split between multiple books would have taken away from the emotional impact.

Do yourself a favor and add this to your TBR before it comes out in August. It is going to be living rent free in my head for a long time 😭

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted ARC!

Wow, okay, this was absolutely amazing.

One thing to keep in mind is that this the feel of this book is different from The Poppy War. Babel doesn’t have as much dramatics as The Poppy War trilogy. If you are looking for something with like action packed fantasy feel (idk if thats the right description) then Babel probably wont be a book you would enjoy.

Babel follows four main characters, Robin, Ramy, Letty, and Victoire, who are all so complex and you get to see how their flaws and internal struggles really impact themselves and each others. The magic system with the silver working and translation was unique and really easy to understand (at least for me).

Now for someone who is not well versed in linguistics, some parts were a bit confusing but the book was still easy to understand and i didn’t really feel like i was missing out on anything super important. For the most part I really enjoyed the pacing of the book but at some points it dragged on a bit.

I loved every bit of this book and Babel encompassed the dark academia genre perfectly.