This is a book I thought I would love, however I did not fully enjoy it. I really enjoyed myself in the first half of the book and the second half felt a bit short to me. 

I enjoyed the lectures, since I do really like languages. There is a lot of talk about languages besides the lectures as well. It was really interesting. But it these parts might be boring if you are not interested in languages. 

I liked the characters, the vibe and the setting of the book. But, I would have liked to know more about Ramy, Victoire and Letty, since they are a big part of the book. 

The were a lot of footnotes in this book, often unnecessary ones in my opinion. I often did not read them. The talk about racism, colonialism and history was good and interesting. This was very well thought out and researched. 

However, it was sometimes not well executed. Everytime something (obviously) racist happend, there was a long description of why it was racist. The long description were quite annoying. You can just show it and trust that the reader will pick up that it is racist. Besides, the character wouldn't think so elaborately realisticly. 

In conclusion, I enjoyed the vibe and setting of the book. I liked that they study languages and I enjoyed reading about languages. I haven't seen a book discussing languages so in depth before. The side-characters felt flat to me. The footnotes were too much and there was a lot of over-explaining. The ending felt unnecessarily over-dramatic. It was nice to see that racism and colonialism was discussed, and from an asian, Cantonese, character. Very important topics to discuss.