Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

11 reviews

franzivonhagen's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Death, Gun violence, Slavery, Terminal illness, Violence, Racism, Colonisation, and Sexism

jelliestars's review

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Violence, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Racism, Cultural appropriation, Death, Blood, Death of parent, Torture, Colonisation, Gun violence, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, Murder, and Misogyny

Moderate: Gore, Torture, Child abuse, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Classism, Drug abuse, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, War, and Addiction

Minor: Child death, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Kidnapping, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Trafficking, Car accident, Genocide, Infidelity, Islamophobia, Vomit, Confinement, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Alcoholism, and Panic attacks/disorders

audreading's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Such a beautiful book. I started out expecting dark academia with some social commentary and was taken on a journey so much further than that. I’ve rarely loved a protagonist so much as I loved Robin. My heartstrings were tugged in every direction.

Despite being about language and often delving into etymology, the book is in no way pretentious. It’s quite the opposite. Accessible literature is the key to liberation and Kuang shows us that with both the character’s journey and with the book itself. At times I did wish some footnotes were simply in the text above, as I lost my place every time I checked one. However, the footnotes did bring an even more intimate touch to the book and were sometimes helpful.

Spoiler

If I really scrape my brain to find anything not to like about the book, it is only in lack of setup for some key plot points. First, Letty. That witch. I’m not going to say I didn’t expect her to turn on them. Of course I did. But I felt it would have been more in character for her to simply turn them over to the police or call her dad and never show her face until the end. Killing Ramy??? (cried forever btw) I get she was in love with him, but she just doesn’t seem like she’d have it in her to directly do it. I mean that to say she’d take the cowardly way, but still betray them by turning them in. Even with that being said, I 100% agree with hammering in the point of the privileged white woman who will do anything to look like the victim while destroying others.

The other part I felt needed a better setup was Robin and Victoire’s storm on Babel. It felt a little underwhelming and to be honest I don’t think so many people would be so easily convinced to go along with occupying the building, especially not Craft who we had never heard express discontent with Babel before, even though she knew everything they were doing. And I didn’t really get why they were so protected from the police. I know why they couldn’t kill them, but why couldn’t they enter the building? Not questioning the plot at ALL here. I think it’s so important to show strikers as the assets they are. Just commenting on some things I felt were a little confusing. All in all, these comments are just me coming up with the only tiny complaints I possibly could! The book is incredible!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Classism, Colonisation, Xenophobia, Terminal illness, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Torture, Murder, and Death of parent

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, War, Suicide, and Racism

Minor: Slavery

The list of content warnings seems long, but most of these things are tied intrinsically into the class themes in the book, on large scale and personal level. I’m very sensitive to triggering content and there were only a couple parts of the book that were hard to read. I try to include all content warnings to help people like me, but don’t be scared away from this book at all! Kuang handles everything in the best possible way.

asifsyed's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Racism, Cultural appropriation, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Violence, Murder, Trafficking, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Slavery, Misogyny, Grief, Drug abuse, and Gun violence

Minor: Torture, Police brutality, War, Abandonment, Terminal illness, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

niceonehros's review

While I enjoyed the treatment of colonialism I didn't have the stomach for the scenes where Robin is beaten by the Professor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Grief, Racism, Medical content, Racial slurs, Colonisation, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Terminal illness, and Death of parent

spineofthesaurus's review

challenging dark informative sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Child abuse, Blood, Colonisation, Violence, Xenophobia, Classism, Death of parent, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical trauma, War, Body horror, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Torture, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Genocide, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Misogyny, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, Deportation, Islamophobia, Medical content, Slavery, Terminal illness, Ableism, Child death, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Kidnapping, Sexism, and Trafficking

Minor: Excrement, Infidelity, Car accident, Alcoholism, and Addiction

notthatcosta's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

First and foremost I respect for R.F. Kuang’s ambition in building this world. The first section ended up being my favourite of all, mostly because its main focus was on establishing the complex parallel universe in which this world exists.

However, the middle section loses a lot of steam for me and ended up spending far too long hovering over tired literary tropes before kicking back into gear for the ending, which was saved by an excellent epilogue. What took me out of the book was how it sometimes directly placed itself within the 1800s in every sense and other times featured dialogue that felt like contemporary Twitter discourse about colonialism. 

Tonally the book was confusing, the motivations for the characters were sometimes unclear, but it is the masterful use of the discipline of translation that keeps the book grounded in intricacy and care.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Mass/school shootings, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Gun violence, Hate crime, Suicide, Sexual assault, Murder, Death, Death of parent, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, and Violence

alisonvh's review

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book is so good and so well written! Although my first instinct is to say the author doesn’t give people enough credit for their capacity for empathy, I can’t deny that white people don’t have a great track record when it comes to empathy for people of color. In that way the book is similar to Power, which I loved. I’m going to have to sit with this one for a while before I can determine how I feel about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Torture, Xenophobia, Racism, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Bullying, Violence, Racial slurs, Sexism, Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Addiction, Religious bigotry, Physical abuse, Infidelity, Gun violence, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, War, Drug use, Islamophobia, Death, Toxic friendship, and Terminal illness

nulliusmomenti's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Violence, Racism, Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Colonisation

Minor: Suicide, Terminal illness, Slavery, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Misogyny, and War

internationalreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

R. F. Kuang is the smartest author I’ve ever read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Cultural appropriation, Genocide, Violence, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Vomit, War, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Alcohol, Gun violence, Blood, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide