this book left me sobbing in my room, ever since reading the poppy war trilogy I knew that anything written by R.F. Kuang would equally break my heart. this book broke me in ways I never thought were possible and I'm so incredibly grateful for it. Babel is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read and I'm not sure I'll ever recover from it.

"Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation – a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them."