Finished: Babel by R.F. Kuang 💙📚
★★☆☆☆ I tried to like this book. It has all the elements of a book I would love: etymology, 19th century England, a diverse set of characters, magic, and an academic setting (Oxford, no less!). But I found it slow and repetitive, filled with one-dimensional, unlikable characters, and lecture after lecture on how the rich and powerful mistreat the poor, especially those who aren’t white and British, except for those that are poor and British. It took me almost two months to finish this, and it was a struggle.
I appreciate the idea behind the story, but not how it was told. Not every book is for every reader.