The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela

Published 2022 · 322 pages · 80,500 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is The Town of Babylon to read?

The Town of Babylon scores 42 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 38 out of 100
Contemporary suburban vocabulary.
Sentence structure: 40 out of 100
Clear, direct sentences.
Abstraction: 45 out of 100
Adolescence and community.
Information density: 40 out of 100
Long Island detail.
Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
Young narrator's limited view.
Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
Babylon, home carry weight.
Ironic distance: 45 out of 100
Coming-of-age perspective.
Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
Youth continues.
Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
Traditional coming-of-age.

How The Town of Babylon is regarded

The Town of Babylon holds a literary regard score of 48 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Alejandro Varela