3,5⭐️

I am so torn about this book. I loved aspects of it, but others were too bad to give it more than 3 stars...

Good points:

- The worldbuilding and magic system are amazing, although I would have wished it had been used more throughout the story, that we'd see the effects of silver-work on society before it would be used for the rebellion. Although I'd say the magic was so lightly sprinkled over the text that it was more of a historical fiction that labelling it as "fantasy" is quite generous.
- The beginning was really immersive. The time period, London and then Oxford were so well written... the last two-thirds of the book slowly used too much modern colloquialisms, which is a shame for a story on languages.
- The racism and misogyny are well-written and so rageful, if not subtle (more about it later).

Bad points:

- What happened to "show, dont tell"? The entire story was telling us everything! What truly bugged me was for the cohort and the "friendship" between the four MCs. Robin keeps telling us they're close and a family, but we only ever see them argue or disagree.
Don't make me started about the notes. At first they were nice, funny and useful for the different languages but it slowly turned into an agressive repetition of the actual text where I felt, like many others, that the author needed to repeat in as simple terms as possible what she wanted us to know. We're not dumb.
- The pacing. It was so slow and weird with very little happening. I love history and I love linguistics but the constant classes slowed down the story too much. I wish we had seen more of Hermes and proper actions taken by the characters. Why did we have the other three of the cohorts' tell their backstories at random moments in the book? We should have had the characters learning all that together, along with us.
- The characters. Besides Robin, most characters were not fleshed out much and I barely care about them. I care about the ideas that they represent, but...not *them*.
- The lack of subtlety. I get it, it's about colonialism and the power of languages but RF Kuang just slammed us with constant reminders of the racism the characters suffer from, which I wouldn't mind if it had been a bit more nuanced. Lettie was such a stereotypical angry, bitter, privileged white girl and I hated how from the BEGINNING Robin, Ramy and Victoire never bother telling her what they're going through. They later say they tried but we never actually see them do such a thing? We only get Robin to complain about how Lettie would never understand because she's white and I hate that she was treated this way. She was immediately alienated from the group because of her whiteness.

What bothered me too is how *obvious* Kuang made the racism occur. I'm not denying it existed, I'm not denying people of colour suffered and still do from the systemic oppression, but what are her sources? I genuinely want to ask some questions - that sculpture with William Jones surrounded by sitting Hindus most likely never existed , so why add it? I couldn't find any quote from Jacques Pierre Brissot from les Amis des Noirs saying such a thing as Victoire claims after the revolution in Haiti?

Once again, I'm not denying it *might* have been the opinions or reactions of many, many white people in 1830s England...but why push it to such lengths? It becomes an almost cartoonish representation of racism.

A more nuanced approach would have been to talk about the racism against black people in China, but they're spared from it. Why not have a few white characters standing up for the people of colour, like Professor Craft did at the end? Why not have people of colour HELPING the system like so many did throughout history? It would given a more global and realistic aspect about racism.

I'll probably sound like a stereotypical angry, bitter, privileged white girl, but I didn't like this book like so many others did and I have things to say about it.