I just posted a brief review of Babel by RF Kuang on the Discord of a Booktuber I enjoy/support. Here is the non spoilery version:

Some more thoughts from me about Babel. Note I haven’t watched Christy’s video about it yet. I found it a really compelling page turner of a historical novel, raising so many important issues about colonialism. But also about language, and words, and movement of ideas. It felt almost Dickensian for much of the plot, but in a much more dynamic way than Dickens usually is. There were also academia elements that felt familiar from even Harry Potter. The worldbuilding was superb, and the characters were well defined. I really liked some of the narrative tricks, including at times looking back and foreshadowing. To get a little more into spoiler territory <REDACTED HERE>.