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Set in the 1830s, Babel centres around young Robin Swift whose entire family in Canton dies of cholera. He is taken away to England by a white man, Professor Richard Lovell who becomes his ward. For this, Robin is required to spend long days over many years learning Ancient Greek, Latin, and Chinese.
When the time comes, Robin is sent to The University of Oxford. Here, he befriends a band of misfits � Ramy, an Indian young man, and two young ladies, Letty, a Brit, and Haitian-born Victoire.
The group study at the Royal Institute of Translation in the language department, aka Babel A literal tower, Babel houses magical silver bars. These bars are inscribed with words from various languages from around the world and translating the words hold the world’s most powerful magic. Performing all kinds of tasks, replacing the technology we know. Silver magic can also cure all kinds of diseases, except death.

The fantasy element feels underwhelming and there is too heavy emphasis on academics.
The author’s writing is nothing short of beautiful, however, the style hindered my ability to connect with the story. I had the constant feeling of being an observer of the story rather than being immersed in it.
Kuang has researched the academic aspects and goes to lengths to tell the reader all the clever things she knows so much that the novel feels like a dissertation, a lecture, or a textbook.
Adding to the textbook feel are numerous footnotes these were especially disruptive (and tedious) in the audio.

For all their magic, the silver bars have little impact on the world. The alternate history of the British Empire is not very different from actual history. Racism, imperialism, sexism, and privilege are no different.
Too much time is spent examining linguistics, and unfortunately, not enough is spent developing the characters or their relationships. They are either one-dimensional or unlikeable. Because I could not connect with them, I wasn’t moved by the demise of any character.
Although the author wanted to push the found-family trope, the group seemed to be only friends because they were all outsiders, but I couldn’t see their friendships surviving outside Oxford.

This review may not reflect it, but Babel is a page turner, it’s just bogged down by a lot of exposition.

My overall feeling is that this book is too in love with its cleverness and its setting that it robs the story of real enjoyment. I can’t find a reason to score it anything more than a 3/5.