Mya > Recent Status Updates

Enjoying the audiobook so far

Now half way and still no plot. She has been sexually assaulted and harassed, this is the only thing that has occurred outside of reams about Taiwanese history and language lessons.

Where is the plot and bereavement promised on the blurb??

And do any characters have positive relationships with other women in Kuang's novels? Cos I can't remember any.

75 pages in and I'm not sure. Vague hints of plot, just facts about language / learning. There aren't true "scenes/chapters" just short fragments that tell you. I love languages. This should be for me. I don't have any connection to characters or story yet.

Each book since Babel has progressively got less like the R.F. Kuang I know and love. No one else could've written Babel, anyone could write this.

I really want to like this but at 140 pages in, it is still so hard to follow who the 3 characters are and what is happening to them. I'm confused and constantly flipping back to the cover blurb to remind myself who they are and their part of the story.

Fascinating. But V. Eurocentric (only Europe, US & 2 Australian cities) & I am slightly uncomfortable with the bi-erasure & its normalisation - e.g. when discussing a book owner with a family "it has been claimed that Roth might have been bisexual...but the jury is still out", then in the following sentence refers to him as a straight ally bookseller... big assumptions re mono-sexuality and bi/pan/non-mono erasure...

Currently reading although not sure I'll finish it. I loved Beth O'Leary's first few books but they've just felt very bland and generic for me since. 🤞

I watched the series and still cannot get over the nightclub scene with t.A.T.u's (iconic Russian lesbian anthem) "All The Things She Said" and how piercingly the scene and song lyrics ("this is not enough") depict the reality of accepting your sexuality and the fear and unknowns and shame you must face head on when accepting that heteronormativity will never be enough for you. Love Ilya (bisexual king), so I'm here.

Really incredible book with lots of beautiful and transformative insights about plants but crucially how we relate to nature and each other through our actions, cognition, and language. Listening to the audiobook but also loaned the ebook to make notes and highlight all the passages and insights I want to retain. Even this early into the book, I already think everyone should read this and I won't be the same after.

Only 100 pages left, thought there was 200 left 🥲

Finishing this on audiobook after my library loan ran out.

I keep trying so hard to care about this book, but I just can't. The observations of academia are not unique or novel in any way. The writing or world building could be done by anyone else. Katabasis has nothing on Babel and is not R.F. Kuang'a finest work by far. I'm DNFing again for the final time. (Also, the narrator's American accent is not good and annoying).

I'm back again. 3rd time's the charm. Now trying the audiobook as my last attempt.