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inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅

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inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅’s favorite-books shelf

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅ is Currently Reading

inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅ is currently reading

Babel

by R.F. Kuang (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: favorite-books, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in January 2024

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inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅ said: " wow.... This one made me forget I was reading. I genuinely enjoyed Babel so much and felt like I both learned and reflected a lot. The main cohort were all such dynamic characters. I applaud Kuang for making them so multi-dimensional, villains and he wow.... This one made me forget I was reading. I genuinely enjoyed Babel so much and felt like I both learned and reflected a lot. The main cohort were all such dynamic characters. I applaud Kuang for making them so multi-dimensional, villains and heroes alike. And while I just described a binary, her characters were really anything but. Yes, there were the "good guys" and the "bad guys" but she did a great job making everyone fully human, flawed, and interesting. The subtitle: "the necessity of violence" was such a CHOICE and I am here for it. The topic of colonization and the inherent violence required and perpetuated by it was not what I expected from this novel (more on that later).

Coming into this book with a newfound thirst for academic fiction, it is exactly what I needed. It's a grown-up Percy Jackson/Harry Potter fan's dream. I loved the pacing of the novel, I think it's near perfect for what I was looking for. The time spent on exposition at Oxford and describing the academic process was so nicely immersive that I felt invested in their lives and learning. Beyond the plot gripping my attention, my favorite part of the whole was the exploration of translation and linguistics. Kuang didn't just write a novel about translation and language, she threaded her research into every chapter in such a way that you can't help but be fueled by linguistic curiosity.

My one critique, which requires delicacy and thoughtfulness on my part, is how lecture-y the narrative became in the last 200 or so pages. Now, I struggle saying this because I agree with Kuang's commentary on the topic at hand (the violence and exploitation in colonialism), but it felt a bit contrived at times. I wanted so badly to sit down with her editor and say "hey, let's give your readers a bit of credit and anticipate that they don't need this SO spoon-fed." As the daughter of an immigrant, raised speaking multiple languages and being hyper aware of translation and the effects of colonialism, I recognize that I could easily be a character in her book, but even just as a generally well-informed person, I felt a little bonked over the head with her rhetoric. HOWEVER, upon thinking this, I was reminded of Barbie (2023) and how so many women like me were criticizing the film for feeling like a redundant, preaching-to-the-choir lecture on Feminism 101. While Barbie didn't teach me anything new about feminism, it is still a pillar in media telling the story of what it's like to be a woman and how even today, these simple pleas of respect and acknowledgment are necessary. So that being said, while I do consider some of Kuang's rhetoric to be repetitive, or common sense (therefore, edit-out-able), I acknowledge that a lot of people in this world need to hear it point-blank. Similarly to Barbie watchers, I assume most "Babel" readers have the wherewithal that I believe they do to understand socio-racial-economic politics without it being put into such glaringly contemporary terms, so my criticism stands. But it is nitpicky at best, entirely unnecessary at worst.

Ultimately, I loved this novel and I am so grateful to have started my year off with it. 10/10 recommend. ...more "

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(page 435 of 544)
— Jan 09, 2024 07:50AM

Jan 10, 2024 07:23AM · see review

inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅ is currently reading

Pocket Nature Series: Beachcombing: Cultivate Mindful Moments by the Shore

by Sadie Small

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Jul 29, 2025 05:50PM

inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅ is currently reading

David Copperfield

by Charles Dickens

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Jul 27, 2025 07:43AM

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inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅’s Notes & Highlights

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

18 highlights

The very word “gloaming” reverberates, echoes—the gloaming, the glimmer, the glitter, the glisten, the glamour—carrying in its consonants the images of houses shuttering, gardens darkening, grass-lined rivers slipping through the shadows.

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inés ⋆.˚‧ଳ ₊˚❀⋅’s Quotes

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

tags: reading

3810 likes

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

tags: art, painting

1929 likes

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

tags: books, morality, reading, writing

7403 likes

“It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

tags: music, poetry

526 likes

“How do I know you'll keep your word?" asked Coraline.
"I swear it," said the other mother. "I swear it on my own mother's grave."
"Does she have a grave?" asked Coraline.
"Oh yes," said the other mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

tags: dark, humor, mothers

785 likes

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