hfjarmer's Reviews (394)

Robin Swift is a Cantonese-born mixed-race child whose family was killed by a cholera outbreak in 1828. Professor Lovell of Oxford University (and later we find out, Robin's father), heals Robin with silverwork, and carts him off to England, where he completes rigorous coursework in Mandarin, Latin and Greek in preparation for admittance to Oxford's Royal Institute of Translation, colloquially known as Babel.

Robin is overjoyed to be at Oxford. For the first time since he left home, he is surrounded by people his own age, and finds friends among his Babel cohort. Robin realizes he is not the only person of color in the Babel school of translation, and is surprised to hear of other students who were taken on as wards by wealthy Englishmen in preparation for attending Oxford. Babel is the world's leading translation center, and home of silver-working - the art of utilizing words of different languages with similar roots in order to create "match pairs" that can then be inscribed on silver bars in order to perform the task inscribed. Robin joins up with the Hermes society, a secret, Robinhood-esq order ran by Babel students who have faked their own deaths in order to steal these silver bars from Babel in order to re-distribute them to those in need. The Hermes society opens Robin's eyes to the evils of the British Empire. He learns that the English empire is utilizing silver-working to facilitate colonization, and specifically has plans to wage war on Canton and he can no longer sit idly by.

Babel is an excellent read for lovers of fantasy, historical fiction, and dark academia. It combines all the best elements of these genres, creating a Secret History style novel. R.F. Kuang paints a vivid story with themes of race, class, and colonialism in the 19th century. Themes that are, unfortunately, still relevant to today' society. One painful and blatant example of this is Letty who, despite spending years of being a loyal and loving friend to Robin, Rami, and Victoire, can never set aside her inherent prejudices and privilege to understand the world as it is in the eyes of her non-white friends. “What you don’t understand,’ said Rami, ‘is how much people like you will excuse if it just means they can get tea and coffee on their breakfast tables. They don’t care, Letty. They just don’t care.” I really loved this book, and am eager to read others by R.F. Kuang. Her writing style was thorough and eloquent and her world building kept me interested throughout, which is a feat considering my typical difficulty in following worldbuilding within the fantasy genre.

The one thing I've learned about myself is Jane Austen is likely to be the only author to ever convince me to read romance. There is just something about the feelings "You pierce my soul" evoked in me that no other author has come close to producing. Persuasion follows Anne Elliot, daughter of the incredibly vain Baronet Sir Walter Elliot and sister to the exceptionally pompous Elizabeth and ever-hysterical Mary. Finding themselves in a financial predicament, the Elliot family plans to move to Bath, to conserve funds. To produce an air of doing a favor, they let Kellynch estate to admirable Admiral Croft and his wife. Mrs. Croft is the sister of one Captain Frederick Wentworth, Anne's former fiancé. Tragically, Anne was persuaded (ding ding ding) to break off her engagement with Wentworth at the time, due to his lower position in society and lack of fortune. After weeks of forced proximity (as their families keep each other's company quite frequently), overcoming the attentions of cousin Elliot and Louisa Musgrove to Anne and Wentworth, respectively, Wentworth finally admits his unending love for Anne. They have been longing, yearning, pining for each other all these 8 years.
 
Persuasion is a tale of influence, lost love, and the familial duties of women. This novel draws excellent attention to intricacies of match-making during Austen's lifetime. Her characters never fail to amuse me, and I particularly loved Mary's character, as her absolutely inane and over-the-top personality is one of my favorite aspects of Austen's writing. The subtleties and nuances she writes in her character interactions are truly artful. Also, I'm very sad to say, I thought the movie was completely awful.

This story follows April May, a 23-year-old graphic designer/starving artist living in NYC. April discovers a large transformer-like sculpture on her way home from the startup where she works at 3am. She promptly calls her friend Andy, who meets her in front of the giant 'sculpture' despite the early/late hour and they film a pretend news YouTube video in which they dub the sculpture "Carl". Come to find out, Carls have appeared in almost every major city across the world. April and Andy, along with a group of friends (new and old) unlock the secrets behind these beings, believing them to be extraterrestrial in nature, and sent to unite humanity. It is a tale of the goodness of humanity, the toxicity of media, and the fragility of the human ego. 

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I ended up liking it. I am a long-time fan of Hank Green's and fellow fans of his will be delighted to see all the 'Hank-isms' sprinkled throughout this book. Hanks' personality certainly shines through in his writing and his faith in the goodness of humanity feels contagious. That being said, I feel the story could have been better executed, though he certainly hit a stride in the last third of the book. I listened to the audiobook version of this, and felt it hindered my experience, the narrator made the book feel more cheesy and cliché sounding than I think it would have if read on my own. Despite all this, I will still be reading A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (non-audio this time).