Kuang is clearly smart and has good ideas. Not a very good writer though. Nothing a good editor can’t help, but hers continues to let her down. Seriously, a book where the chapters just follow the story (almost entirely) in a straight line? PhD student descends into Hell to retrieve her advisor = A B C D. It gets old REALLY fast. For 541 pages. Like “Babel,” the writing doesn’t warrant this page count.