Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: Historical Fantasy
Length: 544 pages
Author: R.F. Kuang
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Release Date: August 23rd, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic 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. The tower and its students are 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 the arcane craft 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?

WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO READ THIS?

Well I do know why, I didn’t love the conclusion to The Poppy War series, but I heard too many good things about this book not to give an [eventual] go, AND HERE WE ARE.

I loved it.

I loved how complex it was. I would sit there and be in absolute awe that R.F. Kuang created this amazing story. I felt like I learned so much and with the audio it really came alive (highly recommend this route, I think it saved me from thinking it was too slow).

Robin Swift is the definition of a tangled character. Going through everything he does and choosing some good and some bad decisions. I loved following his story and the intensity at which I felt for the high and low moments. Some of those moments towards the end had my heart breaking. There is so much I could discuss but also no way I could fit it into a review, if you’ve gotten this far just know YOU SHOULD READ IT.

I felt a whole range of emotions reading this and this dark academia story is a new favorite.

Overall audience notes:

• Historical Fantasy
• Language: some strong
• Violence: high
• Trigger/Content Warnings: loss of loved ones, murder, colonization, war themes, discussions of slavery, physical abuse, racism, xenophobia, colorism, mentions of suicide, inhuman work conditions, police brutality, brief sexual assault, misogyny, anxiety depiction

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