Member Review

Babel by R. F. Kuang
Audiobook narration by Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown
Thank you Netgalley and HarperVoyager for a copy of the audiobook for an unbiased review.

To be upfront as possible, I've already read the book and absolutely loved it. However, that doesn't always work for audiobook versions (for example, I adore The Priory of the Orange Tree but absolutely cannot get on with the narrator of the audiobook).

Here it was great but with a potential problem for some listeners. The main narrator was great. I personally found his voice easy to listen to, with the right amount of inflection to help bring this novel alive.
The problem was - certain words were definitely mispronounced on both sides, but was this intentional?

This book is very much about colonialism, about etymology and linguistics. So it might be these 'errors' are intended as they would be pronounced by the characters involved. In fact I suspect that is the case, but sadly I also suspect that it might well go over other listeners heads because perhaps they don't get the book in the same way I do? Which isn't a criticism of them, but it is a book that because of its overall theme, many won't get.
The thing is, I actually felt the mispronounced words added to the books powerful narrative, intentional or not. So I would say if you're struggling to get into the book reading it, go for the audiobook to try and get a different perspective and dynamic from it.

So once again I'm happy to give this 5/5 stars.

The only aspect I would ask is audio levels on inserted passages were way out of balance with the rest of the book audio. That really should be addressed in my opinion.