This was a book that made you work for every glorious word that was written. It's on the longer side and the first couple hundred pages are slower paced, but with every page you turn you're rewarded.

What really made the book for me wasn't so much the characters but the world-building - Oxford becomes a comforting home, a centre of unspeakable power and a terrifying an alienating place all at the same time. The use of the historical setting and the academia of Oxford and Babel, the pinnacle of scholarly study, to highlight the problems of empire and colonialism and the innate greed and self-destruction that comes with this. This is all layed out unapologetically to the reader and having it as a theme within the story and not the clinching synopsis really gives it that element of surprise.

I don't think I need to say much about the use of languages themselves but suffice to say I am astounded at the knowledge that is poured into this and want to delve myself into this world of match-pairs forever.

An absolute five star read for me!