oh my. i have sm thoughts. i debated my rating a lot, but i ultimately settled on a lower score bc of how much this books falls off towards the end for me.

i really enjoyed the first half of the book: when they're all kids falling in love with oxford but at the same time, slowly discovering the horrors of imperialism and how they aid it by being scholars at Babel. the turning point of the story is when

robin kills professor lovell

; afterwards, i really did not enjoy it. all the commentary on colonialism felt too on the nose for me, and i also felt like the intensely dramatic turn that it had taken felt too YA for my tastes. i also wanted more from the characters — i felt like they were a super weak point of the story?? victorie and letty felt severely underdeveloped despite their prominence throughout the book; robin's development towards a vigilante / violent rebel felt unsupported, since we are barely given any of his inner conflict.

this is probably my longest review on storygraph so i guess it's good it made me have so many thoughts?? but idk, not my fav read. my favorite parts are — contrary to popular opinion — the footnotes and the beautiful descriptions of etymology/linguistics/the silver magic system.

EDIT this review on reddit sums up my thoughts on the book perfectly:
However, probably my biggest complaint is the heavy-handedness of the themes. I actually don't mind unambiguous themes: I adore Jemisin's Fifth Season, but its thematic content feels more organically woven into the story and consequently worked much better for me, where story and message proceed in lockstep. With Babel (and, to be fair, the Poppy War trilogy) I feel that events and characters are twisted into the themes and message that Kuang wants the reader to take away. This frustrates me as a reader, precisely because I agree with Kuang about racism within academia, the horrific legacies of colonialism and the trauma they inflict on those who seek entry and success within these storied academic institutions - I frequently wanted to tell her that I was already on her side. I almost felt that Kuang didn't trust her readers to know that colonialism was bad and had to constantly, overtly remind us of that fact. In general, I prefer the themes of the book to present themselves in a way that gives more agency to the reader to put the pieces together, but I acknowledge others may be bothered by this less.