Katabasis

by R.F. Kuang

Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.

Genres: Fantasy, Dark Academia, Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction, Adult, Mythology

559 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 26, 2025

About the author

Rebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, translator, and award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy and Babel: An Arcane History, among others. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.

Reviews

[Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars.

"Christ," said Peter. "Hell is a campus”

Alex and peter referenced a lot of other literary underworld: Dante, Virgil, Orpheus and it got me wondering what if, someday, authors do the same with this book? What if Kuang’s version of hell becomes a new reference point, a kind of modern myth that future authors measure their underworlds against?

(it was insanely hard to write a proper review that can go over everything about this book was stunning but i tried my best, this review took me like three or four business days to write because my copy was packed with annotations and notes and I wanted to go over everything I pointed out and highlighted)

katabasis is a dark academia meets fantasy, with philosophical underpinnings, literary references, and an emotional core that Ruined me quietly and slowly. It’s not flashy or overdramatic. It’s not a romance, even if it has a love story. and it’s certainly not a book that hands you a neat resolution in my opinion.

The title, Katabasis, is an ancient Greek word that literally means “descent” and it’s often used to describe a hero’s journey into the underworld. and That’s the framework Kuang uses here: two graduate students, Alice Law and Peter Murdock, who put aside their academic rivalry to descend into hell and retrieve the soul of their professor.

but that’s just the surface level summary because Beneath it, this is a story about academia as a kind of hell in itself. cutthroat, isolating, bureaucratic, and very personal. It talked about loss, identity, grief, and the ways we try (and often fail) to make sense of who we are and the people around us.

It felt good knowing how to fall. Feeling out the worst. Knowing that was an option.

➸ katabasis builds itself around the ancient concept of the descent into the underworld. a motif found across mythologies, and it was NOT a retelling. What she’s doing here is ground the underworld in bureaucratic realism and cultural displacement, and in doing so, she reimagines katabasis not as a heroic descent for glory or salvation, but as a deeply personal, painful search for resolution or maybe even justification of some sorts.

The surreal is tempered by paperwork. That friction between the mystical and the mundane is what gives the unnerving edge this book have. the central conceptual stroke lies in presenting the underworld not just as a spiritual or supernatural landscape, but an aging, dysfunctional infrastructure. it was a system in decline. This frames death and memory not in the usual romantic or sacred way, but as things handled by indifferent systems, twisted in decay.

To be a magician was to be that tortoise racing Achilles; deluding himself, as the runner loomed larger behind him, that space and time would hang still so that he might stay ahead.

➸ The book is written in a non linear structure, I think that’s part of why it works so well. it didn’t give a straightforward descent, it spiralled through memories, flashbacks, and emotional reckonings, it let the key exposition unfold in a more steady flow. it gave an emotional momentum that builds slowly, with a pacing that’s in my opinion, the tightest and most perfected of any of her earlier books combined.

The prose itself is confident as usual. we all know that her writing has always leaned toward the intellectual, but here it feels especially focused. for me the writing here was different than babel. it felt academic without being cold, sharp without being sterile. and when emotions hit, they hit HARD because the narrative doesn’t force them. There’s no melodrama here.

it was sparse, direct, and restrained. There is very little ornamentation in the language. no flourishes or poetic metaphors for their own sake. the tone reflected Alice’s psychological state: tired, disconnected, emotionally compressed. she literally writes as though she is deliberately suppressing sentimentality, that suppression is powerful!!

i think this approach forces you to confront emotions without being led to them. Kuang does not tell us when to feel sadness or anger or grief. She presents the world, the descent, the memories and lets the emotional weight build naturally. The language throughout is meticulously chosen, often clinical, it only makes the occasional burst of emotional clarity more impactful since it doesn’t show that much.

the Dialogue is spare and carries tension through what is not said. because Most of the emotional articulation in the book comes not from speech, but from memory, implication, and absence. the style here is more aligned with literary realism than traditional fantasy. it was very grounded and precise, and even psychological to me. we were almost eavesdropping on alice. hearing her most vile, vulnerable and intimate thoughts, this specific detail reminded me a lot of gifted & talented by olivie Blake!

I wish I were the night, so that I might watch your sleep with a thousand eyes.

Alice and Peter are in my humble opinion are her strongest character work to date. they feel textured. Specific. deeply Flawed. They’re not always likable, and that’s what makes them believable in my eyes.

Favoritism was well and fine if she was the favorite

➷ Alice in particular is built with incredible nuance. she carries a deep emotional reserve. grief, guilt, displacement and all of it simmering just below the surface. She’s not a traditional hero. She’s not even sure why she’s doing what she’s doing. But her complexity makes her who she is.

she is at the center of the narrative, and she’s built carefully as a complicated, unresolved one heroic figure. She is not particularly warm, nor especially sympathetic. She is intelligent and emotionally guarded, and she takes high pride in being distant. she was drifting through life with a kind of quiet inertia that’s clearly rooted in some sort of dislocation.

Her descent is not driven by love, or at least not a healthy kind. It’s driven by confusion, guilt, resentment, and a need to know what exactly she lost. whether grimes was ever what she thought he was. She doesn’t articulate this, and that silence forms the heart of her character. she is someone shaped by what she cannot say.

Peter Murdoch was a book with no ending and all she wanted to do with the rest of her life was to trace her finger down every page.

➷ Peter is not a presence in the traditional sense. He is almost like a memory, a composite of what Alice wants and what she resents. Kuang gives us Peter through Alice’s eyes. fragmented, conflicted, unsteady. He was charismatic, a natural genius, privileged, and in many ways, selfish. But he was also vulnerable and broken in ways that made Alice feel indispensable, and sometimes even powerful.

What’s interesting is that the more Alice descends, the more she seems to question whether Peter was worth the emotional space he continues to occupy. His role in the book is deliberately ambiguous. was he abusive, or just careless? Was he loving, or manipulative? the book never provides certainty. Peter exists as a kind of emotional Rorschach test. he is whatever Alice needs him to be in any given moment.

"I don't think he likes me all that much, actually."
"Oh, he must. He followed you to Hell, didn't
he?"

Alice and Peter are not a romance. Looking back, and even in the moments she relives, Alice feels the imbalance between them. of upbringing distance, their youthful uncertainty, and mismatched hopes. Nothing about their connection was idealized. If it was love at all, it was a love already carrying its own cracks from the very first pages to the last ones.

their dynamic is presented without judgment, but with precision. and their intimacy fracture a lot throughout the book. their memories got distorted. even their grief for each other was haunting. their grief is sometimes not for the person lost, but for the illusion of them. it was so bare if that makes sense, it was in my opinion one of the most beautiful parts in the book. how they reexamine the past through pain and ambiguity, instead of clarity or closure worked so well with giving who they are as characters because alice and peter are cold and not that emotionally available.

There were words you said to create an effect, words constructed to influence your interlocutor. Then there were words you really believed, had believed all along, words just waiting for the right prod to spill.

unlike her earlier works, this is a primary world fantasy, meaning it’s set in a version of our own world. The early sections take place at Cambridge University before shifting into the underworld, which is designed less like a mythical space and more like a decaying government office: full of forms, lines, rules, and systems in decline. hell in here was actually a campus. and as kuang said herself it was indeed Nonsense literature because it blended logical elements with illogical ones

➸ the magic system is rooted in analytical reasoning and logic and chalk. It feels like an extension of the academic world it critiques. I absolutely loved how this system is used not just as window dressing, but more as a lens through which to explore the failures, flaws, and obsessions of academic life. It was a theme but also more than that, it felt like it was embedded into the very fabric of the story. i mean.. they were doing lines with powdered chalk. it was so brilliant!!

she entwined mathematics with magic. In this world, the occult is powered by by paradox, proof, and the brittle logic of chalk lines. Magick is described as “the act of telling lies about the world,” a discipline that works by destabilizing belief itself. A paradox, once believed in for even a flicker of time, makes the universe stumble, and in that blink, reality can be bent.

"Oh, the horror! Oh, to not be clever”

chalk is the chosen medium for this work. it’s Grounded from the shells of long dead sea creatures, it becomes a conduit for what’s called “living dead energy,” and its marks are treated with the same seriousness as equations on a blackboard. Every line, every loop, every closure matters. A smudged circle or an open pentagram is not a cosmetic error but a fatal flaw, as Alice learns through the gruesome fate of her advisor, Professor Grimes. The process is painstakingly mathematical: circles checked with the “Ant Test” to ensure continuity, inscriptions cross-verified like proofs in a seminar. In these moments, i started to see that magick, in Kuang’s hands, is simply mathematics made incarnate, a discipline that demands the same obsessive rigor, the same fear of error, and the same intoxicating wonder when it works.

this marriage of chalk and paradox also sharpened the portrait of out scholars. Alice and Peter are not just magicians they’re mathematicians, logicians, and academics, locked in the endless cycle of competition and collaboration that defines graduate study. Their duels over pentagram structure or the reliability of Orphic sources feel less like wizardly squabbles than like arguments over proofs on a chalkboard, with their egos and futures hanging in the balance. It is in these academic quarrels, and in the magic they produce, kuang captures the strange beauty of mathematics: it’s precise but fragile, and when bent to paradox capable of tearing holes in reality itself.

"Magicians," she sighed. "Fools, all of us."

➸ it’s structured linearly in terms of Alice’s journey into the underworld, but the emotional path is anything but straightforward. It’s a slow and not in terms of action, but in the accumulation of psychological and existential weight.

i LOVED how it was divided into distinct phases of descent, each with its own tone and rhythm, and each revealing more of Alice’s internal world. There are almost no dramatic turns or big revelations. the pacing is intentionally steady, meditative, and at certain parts oppressive. The journey downward is not into spectacle, but into memory.

the scenes did alternate between present action. Alice’s interactions with bureaucrats, underworld infrastructure, strange passengers and moments of memory or inner monologue. but The transitions felt seamless, and often disorienting, which reinforces the dreamlike (or nightmarish) quality of the narrative. The structure allows Kuang to focus not on the destination, but on the process. how grief unfolds as a loop, a descent, a series of second guessings and half understood emotions.

there’s so much happening thematically here. The critique of academia is sharp but not didactic. There’s also a strong undercurrent of religious critique. lots of ideas about sin, punishment, justice, and who gets to decide those things.

and then there’s the music… *dreamy sigh* as someone who grew up loving classical music so deeply from my soul, I was so happy to see pieces and composers into the story. It’s subtle, but it added a whole extra layer to the emotional tone of the book. I even made a playlist after finishing it!!

➸ the actual events of Katabasis are few, and that’s by design. Alice receives the offer. She descends. She passes through checkpoints. She meets fellow travelers. She remembers. She doubts. She continues. And finally, she reaches Peter or the version of him that is left. but the plot from my PoV is not about what happens. It’s about what those events force Alice to face. Every stage of the journey is structured around a confrontation. not just with the monsters or obstacles, but also (or mainly in my eyes) with herself. What she believed. What she lost. What she’s still clinging to.

"Hell's lonely," said Peter. "You'll want company."
"Hell is other people, I've heard."

If her earlier books were about ideas, Katabasis is about people. flawed, searching, and heartbreakingly human.

there are flashes of action tension. a corridor falling to pieces, a figure coming apart, a sudden jolt of panic when something goes off course. but it didn’t feel like plot/external danger but more like metaphors of their psychics unravelling.

katabasis in my view after finishing It’s not about a journey to hell but more about what hell reveals, and how we carry that revelation back with us. it doesn’t offers closure. It is not a fable, or a myth with a moral. It is a meditation on memory, loss, and how we mythologize the people we’ve loved especially when we’ve never fully understood them even after years with them.

The real achievement in here lies in Rebecca’s refusal to dramatize grief. She gives us a story where almost nothing happens and yet everything shifts. It is not about death, but about what the living do with what’s left behind. And more than that, it’s about what happens when we’re finally forced to admit that what we’ve been searching for may never have existed at all. There is no heroism here. Only descent.

i’m very happy. I’m alive at a time where I have the privilege of reading words by those hands Rebecca!!

OH- and this is now an Archimedes fan account *meow*



***ARC Provided By The Publisher Harper Voyager.***

[ଘRory · Rating 3 out of 5]

★★★

"𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆!’ 𝗘𝘂𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱𝗹𝘆, 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱𝗹𝘆, 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗱. 𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗱. 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆: 𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗱. —𝗣𝗜𝗘𝗧 𝗛𝗘𝗜𝗡, “𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗠”

While I entered Katabasis with high expectations, anticipating a thrilling descent into a magical underworld, I found myself navigating a narrative that, while undeniably ambitious, occasionally lost its footing. R.F. Kuang's premise, a postgraduate in analytic magick, Alice Law, and her fellow Peter Murdoch embarking on a perilous journey through the eight courts of Hell to retrieve Professor Jacob Grims, held immense promise. The initial setup, the chalk-drawn pentagram, and the evocative descriptions of the oppressive weather and the chilling architecture of Hell, painting a vivid and compelling tableau.
However, the immersive atmosphere was frequently obscured by an overabundance of descriptive detail. Kuang's prose, while often beautiful, became a dense fog, making it difficult to maintain focus and follow the narrative's thread. The emphasis on Peter Murdoch's backstory, while intriguing, often overshadowed Alice Law's journey in the first helf of the book , leaving her character somewhat underdeveloped. Peter, the aloof yet seemingly empathetic magician, held the reader at arm's length, creating an emotional disconnect that I found frustrating. Alice's attempts to bridge this gap, to truly understand him, were compelling, but often felt thwarted by the narrative's focus on Peter's internal landscape ,It is worth noting that Alice does take a pivotal role in the final chapters, demonstrating her agency and importance within the story.
The enemies-to-lovers trope, a point of significant interest, delivered moments of both captivating tension and jarring incongruity. Certain twists were genuinely unpredictable, eliciting a visceral shock that propelled me forward. However, the initial motivation for the descent into Hell remained shrouded in a perplexing ambiguity, leaving me feeling disoriented rather than intrigued.
Kuang's integration of philosophical and mathematical concepts, while intellectually stimulating, often felt like a display of academic prowess rather than a seamless narrative element. The author's rapid-fire exposition, jumping between complex ideas without sufficient contextualization, left me feeling intellectually inadequate. While a good book should challenge the reader, Katabasis occasionally veered into didacticism, creating a sense of distance rather than engagement.
In conclusion, Katabasis is a work of undeniable ambition and intellectual depth. Kuang's ability to craft a dark and atmospheric world, including the detailed building and oppressive weather, is evident, and the narrative's unexpected twists are genuinely compelling. However, the overreliance on dense description, the uneven pacing, and the occasional feeling of being talked down to ultimately prevented me from fully immersing myself in the story. While I commend Kuang's willingness to tackle complex themes and push the boundaries of genre, I ultimately felt that the narrative's potential was not fully realized. I would recommend this book to readers who appreciate intellectually challenging fantasy and are willing to navigate a dense and sometimes perplexing narrative, but with the caveat that it demands patience and a willingness to grapple with its complexities.


𝙋.𝙎: some quotes I loved :
* I wish I were the night, so that I might watch your sleep with a thousand eyes.
* You thought the world was one way and then it wasn’t. One could become zero. One could become two.
* Everyone else lived in such an ossified world. They simply took the rules given to them.
* An unexamined life is not worth living, as Socrates tells us.
* Goodbyes were worth the effort only when you meant to see someone again.

my new bookstagram
💌roryepistolary@gmail.com


*Guess who got the ARC🤭

[Ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

If nothing else, Kuang is always capable of surprising me. I did not expect to love Babel’s hefty prose, nor did I expect to find Yellowface as unfunny as it was. Katabasis is unique in that it is bereft of anything particularly good or bad. It is nothing.

Here, Kuang asks the question, what if every account of Hell was based on real experiences? What if Dante really traveled to the nine circles? What if Aeneas actually crossed the river styx? What if you read an entire book solely dedicated to the author showing off how much they read?

A full half of this book (more, to be honest) is nothing more than Kuang desperately trying to remind the reader that she is smart. She knows T.S. Elliot and Michael Huemer. She understands Blaise Pascal and August Ferdinand Möbius’ theories. Nietzsche and John Bancroft? Child’s play. When characters aren’t busy info dumping about a dead philosopher (or mathematician, or logician, or theorist, or just some random guy), the narrator does it for them. I cannot emphasize this enough. This is not a case like Babel, where she included quite a bit of context and explanations for languages, histories, and general events. Here, the entire narrative comes to a screeching halt every five seconds so she can explain Schrödinger‘s cat to us. It quite literally reads like a textbook where the actual storyline is only added in to stop you from putting it down. It is so boring.

This is exactly the type of book that will have people online claiming they were “too dumb” to understand it (this is, somehow, used as a compliment!). I am here to tell you that you are not in any way lacking in intelligence if you cannot understand the insane amount of slop in here. It is not a positive attribute that the author threw together a bunch of random academia bullshit in the same way that millennials insert Harry Potter references into their books. Frankly, once you look past all of the philosophy, the writing is unbelievably juvenile.

It actually shocked me quite a bit. My main praise for Babel was the writing. I thought, even if Kuang isn’t the most elaborate with her prose, it was still a beautiful love letter to languages. Katabasis reads like a Tumblr post.

Consider: “You know very well what a heap is. You know it when you see it. It is like porn.” (What???)

“You couldn’t just decide you didn’t like being punished and nope back out into Limbo.” (Nope as a verb???)

Not a quote, but worth noting that the Hell described in this book is not only unimaginative but actively irrelevant to the course of events.

The characters, whom I haven’t brought up at all until now, are insufferable. This certainly tracks with Kuang’s record, as she is really quite good at writing frustrating protagonists (this is a compliment). I liked Alice! Peter, not so much.

Feels a bit ironic that I said there wasn’t anything either good or bad when I’ve gone on for so long about the writing, but I do want to make it clear that I do not actually feel any way about this book. It is strangely written with an alright story that is interesting at times and, more often than not, uninspired. It is merely fine. Not great, like The Poppy War. Not awful, like The Burning God. I will forget I read it in a week.

Review in exchange for an advanced reader’s copy.

[Maddy ✨ ~The Verse Vixen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark Academia meets 🤝🏻Dante’s Inferno!

— A storm of shadows, a blaze of sorrow. It’s a labyrinth of fire and mind games Hell of a ride indeed, got tea for days.. Review incoming… my mind is still untangling this..🕯️📖

-----
ೃ ⁀➷pre-view:🎯

"One journey to Hell, two minds in a race—will they save a soul or just lose their place?"
"Rivals turned allies, with magic to bend—play the game or watch everything end."
"Alice Law’s got ambition, Peter’s got pride? And I’m about to witness them both collide." -OH YESS! 🎭


"Just unboxed the physical ARC of THE most anticipated book of the year— Can you hear me screaming!? -Massive love and thanks to KF Kuang for making my entire month!" The cover, the promises the magic I crave,
A journey to Hell, to save or to slave. "I’m in. I’m ALL in. Watch me dive headfirst into the flames... this ride’s gonna be WILD!" 🤸‍♀️

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books are too magnificent to simply be described—they must be devoured and savored slowly to fully appreciate their brilliance. This is one of them—a spellbinding blend of enemies-to-lovers romance and dark academia fantasy, featuring a mind-blowing journey through hell, where every level embodies sins like pride, desire, greed, wrath, and tyranny, alongside the infamous City of Dis. The story weaves together elements of mathematics, philosophy, and religion, enriched with fascinating anecdotes from Ancient Greek mythology.

Alice Law, an ambitious and brilliant mind in Cambridge’s Magick field, accidentally kills her mentor by misdrawing a pentagram. Determined to bring him back, she embarks on a dangerous quest to hell—only to be joined by her arch-nemesis (and former crush), Peter Murdoch. Their mentor, Grimes, could be anywhere in the underworld, and as they navigate its treacherous levels, they encounter terrifying entities, battle monstrous creatures, and undergo hell’s grueling trials.

Trapped in a relentless race against time, Alice and Peter must confront their tangled past, wavering between love and hate, while guarding dark secrets that could destroy them. The deeper they descend, the greater the danger—not just of losing their lives but of succumbing to the underworld itself. If their secrets come to light, will they escape hell unscathed, or will they be doomed to wander its eternal abyss, their memories erased forever?

Overall: Words cannot capture how much I adored this book—it’s not just my favorite fantasy of the year but possibly the best book I’ve read all year! With its sharp academic wit, themes of abuse, existential questioning, self-respect, and the infinite choices that shape our lives, this novel masterfully blends intellectual depth with an addictive rivals-to-lovers romance. I can’t recommend it enough—add it to your reading list immediately, and prepare to be enthralled by its intricate, mysterious, and utterly unputdownable adventure.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for providing a digital review copy of this masterpiece in exchange for my honest thoughts!

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[Serenity]

I can barely find anything on this book, but there's a tiktok that shows the author talking about the book, and she says, "It's called Katabasis, which is the Greek term for the descent into the underworld narrative. It's about two Ph. D. students who are magicians who travel to hell to rescue the soul of their dead adviser, who died in a freak magic accident, so that he can come back to life and write their recommendation letters and become not just magicians, but tenure track magicians. And it's also a love story. They start off as rivals and end up realizing that they're in love with each other."

Sounds amazing, and I need it!!!

Tiktok and Instagram

[Clace]

AVON AND HARPER IM ON MY KNEES BEGGING FOR AN ARC 🙏🏻
___
Can we just stop what we're doing to admire this beautiful cover 🙏🏻 it's gonna look so good on my shelf!!
__
"Alice Law, you naughty girl. You're trying to go to hell."

Just give it to me please 😭 🙏🏻

[aleksandra]

mother writes = I read

but august 2025??!!???

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

[Khalilah D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ I was fortunate enough to get an ARC of this book and it was incredible. There were so many complex concepts seamlessly blended together to make this masterpiece. There was magical realism, an epic adventure through hell, a critical analysis on academia and a study on our mortality just to name a few of the topics Kuang tackles in this book. It was truly such a unique story with surprising takeaways and I can’t recommend it enough.

[Uzma Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

This must be annoying. If a non-fan got an ARC by one of my favorite authors just to shit all over it, I would be annoyed. I would think, they just don't get it. So there! I've done my due diligence, I've walked a solid mile or so in those shoes, and maybe... maybe I just don't get it.

Entertained yet underwhelmed by the depth of Yellowface, I itched to read more Kuang. I was sure deeper intellectual criticism was bound to find me in her other works. So how divinely guided must I have been to watch an ARC of the shiny, glittering Katabasis fall right into my lap! (Thank you Harper Voyager and all those at Shelves & the City... all press is good press right?). I didn't move a muscle. Here it was, BookTok's most anticipated read in the year of our Lord 2025. Touching my hands! Oh! All of its glory! Long minutes passed, and I broke free of my paralytic spell. Yes, my loves, with shaking fingers, I cracked open those fresh pages... and read.

My eyes gloss over “naughty girl." Hm. No matter, this is fine. Kuang's first foray into romance will have its bumps, so I'll be forgiving of rookie replications. I continue—oh, woah! Would you believe it, within the first chapter, spells are cast, and straight into hell we go. All right! Although unexpected, I'm geared for a fast paced ride! What do you have in store for me, Ms. Kuang?

The short story? Disappointment. The long story?

Read on, man.

I'll spare you the dramatics for the rest, but as some of you may know... from a TikTok video I made at the halfway reading point... three main gripes arose. While I stand by these, I plan on exploring them further in the context of the finished book. Girlsss, introduce yourselves now:
1. prose
2. fact over fun
3. character development

Beginning with #1: prose, I often find myself unimpressed with the typical BookTok favorites populating that table in Barnes & Noble, so this is run of the mill. But knowing Kuang, watching her interviews, and learning her authorial inspirations, I think her style attempts to replicate some literary darlings. Yet it falls flat on its face. Here: although not a constant, many paragraphs hold entire sentences following the formula of "subject verb object." I present an example:

"He tumbled the last meter but landed all in one piece. Alice jumped down beside him and landed sprightly on her feet. This hurt her heels, but she had a silly urge to impress Peter," and on it goes.

Since I'm a freak, I know Didion inspires Kuang. Since Kuang's a freak, I know she'll read this review, but that's besides the point. Didion has a similar approach, as she commonly follows the "subject verb object" formula, but what differentiates the two is where the rest of the sentence flows from its primordial beginning. While Kuang adheres to parallelism (and maybe that's intentional, hey props to you, girl!), Didion lets each sentence flow a different direction. That's the variation that makes the reading experience more enjoyable to me, at least. Each sentence may start the same, but they end up somewhere else. See, Kuang lacks this diverse flow, and for that, I find it difficult to savor.

Oh, my reader friends, but to say it's the worst would be to lie! It’s not the worst. It is fine. Again, I've been reading too many impressive books that I now assume something tame must disappoint. So if this is no problem for you,

read on, man.

(This is a reference to Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic btw. Idk if you can tell I'm obsessed. Sorry to bring up another book in the middle of this review... she's the other woman...)

Numero Dos! or #2, as the English would say. Fact. Over. Fun. While my initial criticisms under this number were typical, I have a bit more to share. See, a lot of Kuang's critics share their aversion to her exposition dumps, but seeing as I have nothing to compare this to but Yellowface, I'm not sure if Katabasis is better or worse than, say, Babel. I think the latter two are closer sisters than the former.

Since all I know is Katabasis, I’ll look at it as an isolated case study. We dive in. Her integration of exposition (all the research she did on hell) is lazy. It is not tightly bound to the plot, it is loose. Unfortunately, Kuang herself is aware of this: "She wasn't sure her ramblings made any sense—it was all a jumble of associated concepts flung together from days of frenzied research" (326). Yeah I just cited that. Kuang rationalizes her poorly constructed research integration by projecting her own writing struggles onto her characters. Ooh that was a claim. Okay sorry, I'll level the playing field, so we can get one thing straight: everyone is impressed with Kuang's research talents. Everyone is impressed that she takes research to fiction! But it's like the RuPaul's Drag Race talent shows: you can have a talent, but if you can't integrate it into your drag, it will flop. Research should likewise be integrated into fiction. But alas! This is a misuse of medium.

While I'm not a fan of the major expo dump in the first hundred pages, like any other fantasy, it improves as the chapters progress. Yet, the dip in exposition is not met with a rise in... well... FUN! I'm majorly upset with the fact that hell was simply not fun!

This is not by design. Little background: Kuang writes hell as a mirror of Cambridge, insinuating that any living visitor will see hell reflected in their own life, or vice versa, however you wanna put it. Sweeping past the plot holes this introduces, that's an interesting set-up! Imagine what Alice and Peter could get into! Lol. Are you imagining? Yeah. It's cool right? Now erase all of that because none of it happens.

The biggest challenges Alice and Peter face are almost instantly resolved by a convenient third party. It keeps happening! Matter of fact, I counted each time Alice said, "could it be this easy?" and for those who own the copy, they're on pages 145, 257, and 398. I don't know, Kuang, it could be easy if you want to write it easy. But at some point, the reader (me) becomes frustrated with the little struggle in these obstacles. They become frustrated that so many advances are earned quite... uh, how do you say... EASILY! Like your ending! Oh, no. Nope. I can't think about the ending or else I'm gonna start twitching in this here library where I write this review.

All right now, all this talk of fun in plot, what about fun in MIND? Is the book intellectually stimulating? I'd admit it depends on how you define the term. At risk of sounding pretentious (I've already sped way past that point), it seems I have a threshold higher than the average Kuang fan. Undeniably, my biggest dissatisfaction with Kuang is the immediate interpretations of her own story. This sharp delivery lent itself well to Yellowface, because it was a satire! Her guided direction worked itself into the comedy of the piece. Yet in the context of a fantasy, in the context of Katabasis, this overbearing Kuangian voice infiltrates all! I find that any interesting questions Kuang introduces (and there are many!) are answered within pages. Please girl, let me think for myself.

This is not exploration, this is rhetoric. Bombastic rhetoric, even. Harken back to the beginning of this review, I was so insanely, graciously lucky to attend Shelves & the City, where fate led me to hear Kuang speak on a panel. Thank heavens! She is such a great speaker! But she said one thing there, and it's been racking my brain ever since I finished Katabasis. It is (paraphrased), "I don't want to tell anyone how to think. I just want to explore the questions that keep me up at night." Oh. Well.

Holy f*cking airball, as they say.

I recall the most common defense Kuang fans tout, which argues that her sharp delivery effectively communicates her message. Then I compare that to her claim above, and there's an obvious disconnect. The one thing on which Kuang lovers and haters agree is that she's direct. And there she was saying that she is not. So is she missing something? Am I missing something?

Maybe she knows her bombastic rhetoric is... bombastic? Her commentary on women in academia is repetitive, tiresome. I wonder who she writes for. If it's meant to be a Cambridge circle jerk, then they already know this. But if it's meant to be for us plebeians, then she must think lowly of our interpretative skills.

At the end of the day, it's not a crime to be direct. But it is a minor offense to lie... and the punishment? How about bombast for bombast? I decree to Kuang the sentence of......... BOMBASTIC side eye!!!! Lmfao sorry to bring that one up ewwww that's kinda cringe sorry. But it was right there.

If you're not totally disgusted by that display, then,

read on, man.

#3 and at this point I'm getting tired I kinda just wanna finish this. I’m not getting paid. Okay so 3 was character development. What I originally said in my TikTok was that we didn't know anything about the characters in the first half, making it painful to trudge through. And well yes! We do get more character info, but only in flashbacks to Alice and Peter at Cambridge. We never quite see it in play. You know the whole "show, don't tell" thing? Kuang forgot about it writing Katabasis. The one time she showed (didn’t tell) was that stellar chapter on Alice and Peter’s strikingly intimate relationship. I yearn for more. Because most often, the reader can not make their own judgement before she steps in. I guess that's par for the course! Praise be the day Kuang realizes that too. That's really all I have to say on that.

When it comes to good things, I wonder if I've spent so much time being negative that I've completely lost the light. Ummmm lemme rummage around in here for a bit. Um. Ooh. No not that. Hmmm. Nope. Ooh. Nuh uh. Ahh! Okay. Parallels between Peter and Alice were lovely! They both have characteristics that make them susceptible to exploitation. How satisfying was that. I do think it would have meant more if we weren’t given crumbs up until some of Peter’s lore dropped. But that’s debatable. And I do love a parallel. I do love it.

And another. All the pieces tied up together at the end, ending with a final reflection on how precious life is! That was quite sweet! Yes yes, I liked how it all came together. The story seemed to be heading that way the entire time, though, lol, like it was quite obvious even when Alice was thinking otherwise. Alice was not very convincing in her stance, but maybe that's why it was so easily changed over the course of this book. Now I know that's just how it goes.

I always want to give an author two chances to see if they vibe with me, and now that I've done that, I know I'll be sitting the rest of Kuang's stuff... out. (I also posted a TikTok on the plot holes of the magic system, but that's gratuitous. For those who are curious, I push you there)

Hope that was elucidating. Hope I wasn't too hateful. Hope Kuang won't subtweet me in her next book. Thank you for reading :)

***

Post-script: it’s release day so I’m thinking of Kuang. What frustrates me most between Katabasis and Yellowface are her “nuanced” characters. Although Alice may fall prey to the system, although June may hold racist beliefs, neither of them are convicted. There is only surface-level stereotyping of alternate thought, rather than true investigation. A powerful writer would challenge their own and their reader’s beliefs, consider how the opponent is right, and return to beginning, with better tools for combat. To fight, you must know your enemy. Yet Kuang dismisses them. Writes them as caricatures. I do not believe this is effective fiction. It is rhetoric masquerading as fiction.

I almost always agree with Kuang’s beliefs, but what I wish her to ask me, through written word, is… why?

Why do I agree?

I wonder if the value of a book lies in its storytelling or its message. Maybe some readers only prioritize the message. I want a story.

Maybe I’m only upset because my fellow readers endlessly sing her praises, and I can’t see it. I have to pick apart the pieces. Say, let’s take the piece where she writes caricatures of enemies. I ask myself, why does this not work? Kurt Vonnegut does the same, and I accept it. Why do I find it funny when he does it? Well, I guess I found it funny in Yellowface. Maybe it’s because these two lean satirical? But outside of the satire medium, Kuang continues to do this! Does it still work in a fantasy? Or is something else required of the genre?

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what makes fiction good. Or maybe it’s a subjective experience and I’m wasting all this time.

Well! Whatever. Kuang announced her next book, and she’s coming for my preferred genre of litfic… we will see how her style lends itself out there.

[Allison E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Welcome to my review for Katabasis. This is officially my favorite R.F. Kuang book, an undoubtable 5 star (6 ??), and a shoe in for making my top books of the year list.

It’s not really my style to hold back in a review, seems like people tend to put a pin in sharing their full thoughts until closer to publication date (August) but I shan’t do that (unless it’s literally illegal lmk I’ll take this down).

Katabasis follows two Cambridge graduate students as they journey through hell to rescue their recently departed advisor. Professor Grimes is the shining key to opening the doors of Alice and Peter’s academic dreams, but can they put aside their rivalry and complicated feelings towards each other to bring him back from the dead and survive the underworld themselves?

Such a fun premise and with a delectable and harrowing !! execution. I loved every single detail, let’s get into it.

Characters

The character work in this is genuinely fabulous. At the most surface level you’ve got a black cat golden retriever dynamic at play but my god is it so much more. Alice mf Law. Gurlllllll.

She is an academic weapon, an underdog, a genius. She’s scrappy though and is not afraid of sacrificing her morals to get ahead. The internalized misogyny that pervades her internal monologue my goddd. Alice is the type who rolls her eyes at the cliche of the disadvantaged / mistreated woman in academia. “Feminism” is embarrassing to Alice, the notion of fighting for her own space in the world so exhausting, so impossible, that she belittles and ignores the concept instead.

“That the academy was sexist was such a boring truism that Alice was no longer disturbed by the fact.”

Rebecca also just knows how to write a protagonist who is totally losing it. Have you ever been able to feel a character’s hunger? Their obsession? Their rising instability? Have you ever felt so deeply intertwined with a character’s psyche that you can recognize their toxic thinking but you can’t help but spiral with them, gaslight yourself, and gloriously hit rock bottom. For me the answer became a decided Y.E.S. with Alice’s portrayal. Her character development and arc was as a result, incredibly satisfying.

I won’t say as much about Peter, half the charm of this story is viewing and learning him through the eyes of Alice. Trust that you will adore (& also want to violently shake) this pathetic brilliant lil bean pole of a man. The romance between Peter and Alice is a SUBPLOT guys. But goodness was every detail scrumptious. Chapter TWENTY TWOOOOO. What an insane pair they make. Obsessed.

“And if falling in love was discovery, was letting yourself be discovered the equivalent to being loved? For it tickled Alice to hear Peter make observations about her; to announce facts she’d never noticed about herself.”

World Building / Magic system

Dante would be sat if he read this. Listennn you do not need to read Dante’s Inferno before diving into Katabasis. But it is a delight to smile knowingly at all the references if you do!! I was enraptured by Kuang’s take on each circle of hell. Such an amazing display of research infused creativity and it felt like she truly had a blast coming up with things. The chalk based magic system rooted in logic? Plsssss. The “intellectual humor” is so good in this too and the pretentious person in me ate up every reference as if I too could make passing jokes like a Cambridge scholar:

“I'm not sure the Furies have read Foucault," said the chairman. "You must consider your audience."

Pacing

In classic R.F. Kuang fashion, Rebecca isn’t afraid to show you she’s an extremely well educated genius of a writer. Katabasis has that same research packed density that Babel did except I found myself eating up every single detail (Babel occasionally felt bogged down / dragged for me… as smart as it was). There are many references to complex logic puzzles, academic theories, mythological texts, authors etc. Despite the weight of all the information Rebecca crammed into this story, I found the pacing excellent. It could be that I was just naturally interested in the subjects touched on… but I truly found this compulsively readable. In short I was eating out of the palm of Rebecca’s hand!!

Themes - some might consider theme sharing spoilery? Proceed accordingly <3

The term “dark academia” has kinda lost the plot but if this isn’t dark academia I don’t know what is. Katabasis is bursting with cynical wit but uses that wit to deliver a blistering critique of academia. I did genuinely felt sick to my stomach at certain parts.

Now it’s time to get cheesy. Aren’t the simplest truths always a bit cheesy though? Like the mind rejects the fact that a universal insight could possibly hold deep value just because it’s widespread.

To me this is a story about what really matters in life when you get down to it. And when you’re scraping the fiery pits of hell what “matters” becomes abundantly clear. What matters is not the prestige, the accolades, or the impossible achievement of “success”. It’s not beating out all your competition. It’s not being the smartest. It’s not climbing the ladder or playing the game or securing the job by whatever means. What matters is human connection. What matters is the big-small things. A shared cup of tea, a conversation between two likeminded people, a cinnamon bun, with raisins.

“Therefore to seek reincarnation is to gamble with overwhelmingly bad odds on a life not worth living.”

But what is a life worth living? Katabasis pokes and stabs at this question in a way I quite enjoyed.

Now for a singular, tiny, honestly pathetic, critique if I may….

This is where we get into what some might consider SPOILER TERRITORY HELLO SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER HELLO BYEE READ THIS LATER WHEN YOUVE FINISHED THE BOOK. I do admittedly read a lot of romance… so there’s a few romance genre conventions that are engrained into my expectations. Because of this, the climax of the romantic subplot I found just a pinch wanting. Like I get Rebecca is not a spice writer and in no way was I expecting that kind of content from her, but I would have loved a drop more of physicality between Alice and Peter? Like they’re literally “forced proximity” stuck together in Hell and working through so much anger and frustration and so what do you mean you’re not going to have an explosive heated intellectual argument that devolves into a juvenile personal attacks that inevitably ends with them making out? The potential for that was so ripe but maybe that would have been too formulaic for miss Kuang. I’ll have to content myself with that adorable hug.

Regardless, 10/10 book, the people are going to love this and thank you to HarperVoyager for the free arc!

[Alexia · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.


I can’t recall the last time I felt such disappointment toward a book, especially one I had eagerly anticipated all year. Unfortunately, this book failed to meet my expectations in ways I hadn’t foreseen.

The premise was intriguing, and the author’s depiction of hell was creative, offering a captivating exploration of various courts, each with its own unique characteristics. I found the interpretations of the seven deadly sins particularly fascinating, as they deviated from traditional representations in refreshing ways. The initial chapters hooked me with the promise of a compelling storyline, but as I delved deeper, the narrative lost its initial allure.

One of my major grievances was the overwhelming amount of exposition. Instead of immersing the reader in the narrative, it often felt like I was trudging through a lecture. The book was packed with information about philosophers, mathematicians, and historical figures, frequently devolving into lengthy info dumps that left the plot stagnant and tedious. Eventually, it felt as if we were endlessly circling the same points, losing the momentum I had hoped to maintain.

Whenever a captivating moment arose, I would eagerly turn the page, only to be met with yet another dense exposition, breaking any exciting rhythm that had developed. Equally frustrating were the poorly executed flashbacks. Instead of enhancing the narrative, they often felt like unnecessary distractions, with thrilling events in the present immediately followed by drawn-out tangents into the past. This disruptive structure gradually sapped my interest and investment in the story.

The characters themselves were another significant letdown. In a story where unlikable characters can add depth and realism, their flaws and the relentless info dumps overshadow the narrative.

Alice, the protagonist, was particularly troublesome for me. From the very beginning, her character felt stagnant; she exhibited minimal growth throughout the story. By the end, there were faint hints of development, but it felt far too late for me to care. Her constant angst over Peter, a character from whom she obsessively sought validation, made it incredibly difficult for me to sympathize with her. Instead of relatable struggles, I found a portrayal of desperation that became exhausting to read.

Peter, on the other hand, was equally unremarkable. He was the perfect character, seemingly having everything he desired handed to him on a silver platter since birth. By the end, I found myself quite disliking him. The romantic arc between him and Alice felt forced and one-sided. I spent so much time waiting to learn Peter’s backstory, only to feel, in the end, that I didn’t know him at all. Alice was often reduced to merely a side note in his tale.

Ultimately, I had high hopes for this book, looking for a unique and engaging experience, but instead, I was left feeling deflated and frustrated. As this was my first experience with an Advanced Reader Copy, I sincerely hope my review is acceptable.

[Rebecca Roanhorse]

Hell is The Academy. I had an inkling of this truth from my stint in grad school... and my quick departure post MA. After experiencing the politics, infighting, and the whole "competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small" thing for myself, I knew it wasn't for me. But Kuang has lived the majority of her life in academia, and she has something to say about that. Starting with Babel (and arguable rearing its nascent head in Poppy War), she has staked her ground in dark academia. And similar in tone to those other works, this isn't soft prep school kids listening to yacht rock and committing privilege on drunken hijinks weekends, this is gritty, brutal, cutthroat semi-feral grad students at elite universities doing what must be done to survive. Frat boys named Topher could never.

The plot is straightforward: Two competing academics (or are they lovers? Enemies? Both? Neither?) travel to Hell to retrieve their advisor who dies in a botched magic ritual. Not that their advisor doesn't belong in Hell, as we quickly learn, but then, they're not retrieving him out of any beneficence, but for their own dark reasons. And in a nod to Dante and Eliot and probably lots of other artists and thinkers who have taken us on a journey through the netherworld (and whose references I just don't recognize), our anti-heroes use their learning and wits and eventually their hearts to discover that maybe there is more to life than post-grad.

There are moments of high action, but many more moments of philosophy and theoretical math
(which are not my fave, but see: quit grad school after my MA). Overall, though, it works. This book is a balance of more literary deep thinking, pop commercial fun, and outrageous audacity - which I entirely applaud - because Kuang uniquely and authentically writes the Academy with the right mix of love and rage. This won't be the book for everyone, but for those to whom it does speak, it will be a catharsis.


I received an ARC which in no way impacted my review.

[Jaime Fok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Babel meets Ninth House meets Inception meets Alice in Wonderland 🤓

Reading vlog coming!

[fadheela ♡ (on a mental-health break) · Rating 5 out of 5]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷・❥・𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀・❥・ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

⤿🏛️ 25/08/25
with happy tears rolling down my cheeks, I declare this is one of the best endings Mother Kuang could've ever written!😭✋🏻 she took my heart out and shattered it, but then at the end gave everything back intact and I couldn't ask for more. full rtc to come later this week, until then I'm going to hell to find my academic rival, named peter 😌👉🏻👈🏻
P.S. ADVANCE HAPPY RELEASE DAY!! Y'ALL AREN'T READY FOR THIS BOOK 🤭 *in a good sense*

⤿🏛️ 21/08/25
*big drum rolls please* 🥁🥁🥁 It's time-*mic drops🎤* to get my soul destroyed, my heart pierced, my brain's chemistry altered (and also beat that longest slump) by none other than the myth, the legend Mother Kuang 😌✋🏻 Are we ready?! Once upon a time, there lived two girls named fadhee and vee, who crawled on their knees and begged for this magical arc for countless sleepless nights from their mother 🧎🏻‍♀️, and then scrumpt a scream when they got it, because this meant everything for them 😭🫶🏻 Their dreams came true, and now they are set out on the journey to find out what's the magic this time. But we all know what happened last time when they were together, so one way or another, they are going to get their souls destroyed yet another time I fear 💔
Here goes nothing....

[deniz · Rating 4 out of 5]

HAPPY RELEASE DAY!!🥹

⭐ 4,50 stars

katabasis wasn’t what i expected and that turned out to be a good thing. i went in thinking it would have action,fast-paced fantasy, something in the vein of the poppy war.
instead, i found deeper,academic,more introspective story. it doesn’t unravel through plot, but through people.their grief, their guilt, their detachment from being alive.

reminded me of babel in the storytelling,and the academic style at some parts. the pacing is slow,but it mirrors the characters emotional paralysis. you’re not reading to find out what happens next,you’re reading to understand why these people are the way they are.

“she was so tired of the contents of her mind. her thoughts were so loud; they pounded her skull, it never stopped, it was all too much.”

peter and alice broke me.
but i wish we had seen more of them. their relationship was full of history and tension.but the book only offered glimpses: shared glances, quiet breathing, unspoken memories. maybe that’s intentional. maybe some connections aren’t meant to be revived,just remembered.

grimes’s storyline caught me off guard. it was raw and deeply unsettling, but also one of the book’s strongest emotional threads. it forces you to sit with the discomfort. there are no clean resolutions.just a quiet honesty.

“all the ghost stories were wrong; hauntings were so rarely malicious. the dead only wanted to feel included.”

katabasis doesn’t shout but its presence stays with you.
the concept was so good but had a few missed emotional moments.if i hadn’t read her previous books i would rated it 5 stars.

still, this book left a mark on me and so glad to get an arc from one of my favorite authors.

thank you to harpercollins for the arc, it was a dream come true

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this will be the BEST thing of 2025.

[Taufiq Yves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Potential Spoilers Ahead!!!

Beneath the ancient stone walls of Cambridge University, Alice Law is pursuing a master’s degree in Analytical Magic. She’s smart and hardworking, but no matter how much effort she puts in, she just can’t seem to win the favor of her advisor, Professor Grimes - a powerful academic gatekeeper who basically controls the entire field. His biases and manipulations are like invisible spells, shaping the fate of his students. Those who don’t earn his approval, no matter how brilliant, often find themselves sidelined and forgotten.

Then, during a magical experiment gone wrong, Grimes dies - and his soul ends up in hell. Alice originally just wanted to advance her academic career, but after his death, she makes a shocking decision: she offers up half of her remaining lifespan in exchange for a one - time trip to the underworld, hoping to bring Grimes back. Joining her is Peter Murdoch, another of Grimes’s students. He’s nothing like Alice - different personality, different beliefs - but in this journey, they become each other’s only lifeline.

Their descent into the underworld - called Katabasis - takes them from one infernal hall to another, facing philosophical riddles, logical paradoxes, and trials of the soul. Along the way, they meet the Shades - spirits who were once victims of Grimes’s cruelty and deception. These souls are waiting for rebirth, and for justice. The more Alice sees, the more she starts to question her mission: why save someone who’s hurt so many?

As the journey deepens, Alice’s goal quietly shifts. She no longer wants to rescue Grimes - she wants to bring Peter back with her. She realizes that the man she once idolized, the person she aspired to become, isn’t worth sacrificing her life for. Grimes belongs in hell. What she truly needs is to reclaim the part of herself she gave up chasing a false ideal.

So this is a novel packed with intellectual weight. Reading it feels like you need a cheat code - math, logic, Greek mythology, philosophy… all these layers are woven into the story’s fabric. The title itself comes from Greek, meaning ”a journey into the underworld,” often referring to a hero or deity who ventures into the realm of the dead and returns with a loved one or deeper wisdom. So yeah, the title kind of spoils the plot - but in a poetic way.

The book reminded me of the Kuang’s other works. In Yellowface, she takes aim at the publishing industry’s hypocrisy and gatekeeping. In Babel she goes full force against the colonial undertones of Oxford. And here in Katabasis, she turns her critique toward academia itself - specifically the toxic power dynamics between professors and students. Cambridge’s ivory tower isn’t sacred anymore; it’s a breeding ground for control and oppression.

Kuang’s writing is wildly creative and ambitious. She blends Eastern and Western mythologies seamlessly: there’s Hell, but also Lord Yama; the River Lethe from Greek myth, and Meng Po from Chinese lore; Dante’s inferno meets traps set by the betrayed Weaver Girl. There’s Orpheus descending into the underworld for love, and now, students diving into hell for their professor. This cultural mashup is totally my thing - it’s rich, layered, and challenges how we perceive myth and meaning.

So why does Alice insist on saving Grimes? By the end, I realized she wasn’t trying to save a person - she was chasing an ideal, a version of the future she thought she wanted. She was willing to give up everything for that imagined future, which is something a lot of us do. We sacrifice the present for a dream that might not even be real.

When Alice finally sees Grimes for who he truly is - a morally bankrupt, mediocre academic who bullied and harassed students - she also sees through her own illusions. Her rescue mission becomes a personal reckoning. She’s no longer trying to save him; she’s trying to save herself. This journey through hell was never about him - it was always about her.

Of course, with 2 young protagonists, romance is bound to show up. I get that. But Alice’s emotional shift felt a bit jarring - she goes from being laser - focused on academia to suddenly prioritizing being with Peter. It didn’t quite sit right with me. They’re brave enough to face death, yet too scared to admit their feelings? That trope felt a little tired, and didn’t fully match Alice’s character.

That said, Kuang mentioned in an interview that this book was written for her husband - a brilliant, gentle man who even added her surname, Kuang, to his own. Knowing that, the romance feels more personal, more heartfelt. It’s a love letter between intellectuals, wrapped in myth and metaphor.

As expected, Katabasis isn’t an easy read. It doesn’t cater to the casual reader or chase market trends. It demands knowledge, cultural awareness, and philosophical patience. But that’s exactly what makes it special. In a time when love is dismissed, literature is commodified, and knowledge is oversimplified, this book stands as a quiet rebellion.

It’s not a book that’s easy to understand as well, but it’s one that deserves to be understood. It’s a literary descent, a spiritual journey, a conversation between self and world. And as I read it, I felt like I was going through my own Katabasis too.

4.6 / 5 stars

[fatma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Katabasis is Info Dump: The Novel. It's a novel that seems to mistake information for narrative, so caught up in its ideas and "clever" logic that it loses sight of basically everything else. How could a novel this long have been so allergic to storytelling? I swear, it felt like all the information in this book was delivered through massive chunks of exposition. Explaining how Hell works? Massive chunk of exposition. Exploring the characters' lives and experiences? Massive chunk of exposition. Critical moment where the characters finally talk to each other? Massive chunk of exposition.

And it's not even that it's a lazy novel, but rather that its energy is entirely misdirected: rather than spend time fleshing out its characters' dynamics or storylines (which, let me tell you, are frustratingly threadbare and massively underwhelming), it funnels almost all its energy into explaining scholarly theories and paradoxes and logic and math etc etc etc. And the fact of the matter is, I can't invest in ~Ideas~ and ~Theory~ when they're not grounded in solid storytelling with solid character dynamics. The result being that Katabasis read like a textbook with the thin veneer of a novel imposed onto it. This whole novel just felt like an inside joke I didn't get--and by the end, I really had no desire to "get" it, anyway.

(thank you to hrc for the eARC!)

[veerali · Rating 4 out of 5]

⁀ ⊹ ₊ To be a magician was to be that tortoise racing Achilles; deluding himself, as the runner loomed larger behind him, that space and time would hang still so that he might stay ahead.

mother kuang has done it again!! i'm probably throwing up a little bit from the sheer emotional whiplash this book put me through. katabasis by r.f. kuang is my most anticipated release of the year, and receiving an arc to buddy read alongside my bestie, fadhee was an absolute privilege. and lemme just say, all the pain, all the misery, all the existential dread we endured from babel? this book fixed it. mostly.


── 𖣠 plot summary

alice law dreamed of being the best magician. she put all her effort, mind, and even health into it. her biggest goal was to work with jacob grimes, the world's greatest magician at cambridge. alice did everything jacob asked, even when he was mean to her, just to get his approval.

but then, jacob grimes died in a magic accident that alice caused. now, his soul is in hell. alice must do whatever it takes to bring him back, even if it means going to hell herself.

peter murdoch, who was always competing with alice, decides to join her on this mission to find jacob's soul. this journey is very dangerous and might cost them their own souls.

will this adventure destroy them? will alice and peter become more than rivals, or will everything end in disaster?


── 𖣠 characters

𖣠 alice law

full disclosure, i was so damn biased about her character at the start. she kept giving me the ick, consistently. why? because she’s the biggest teacher's pet you’ll ever meet, but make it dark academia. her ambition felt almost unhinged. she’d sell her soul for an A, and guess what? she literally almost did. but miss author, you sly dog, you got me. her character growth done so subtly, so painfully, so realistically that by the end, i was stanning her.

⁀ ⊹ ₊ She gazed at Peter and thought, 'I wish I were the night, so that I might watch your sleep with a thousand eyes.'

𖣠 peter murdoch

my pookie. my shayla. my absolute chaotic nerd prince. peter, oh peter. he wears slutty glasses, which is just chef's kiss character design, thank you very much. i was obsessed with him from page one. he's this glorious mix of whiny and sensitive but also fiercely intelligent and surprisingly loyal. there were so many moments where he'd be complaining about something absolutely dire in hell, and i just couldn't stop laughing. and miss author truly gave me the biggest emotional whiplash about him. i was ready to throw the book across the room at one point, i was so mad. but listen, the end was worth every single tear. peter murdoch deserves the world.

⁀ ⊹ ₊ Peter Murdoch was a book with no ending and all she wanted to do with the rest of her life was to trace her finger down every page.

𖣠 elspeth bayes

elspeth is and always will be the it girl. I LOVE HER SO MUCH. she was such a grounding, amazing character. her wisdom, her resilience, her absolute patience with these two chaotic grad students on their journey through literal hell was so good. a literal queen. she was the one holding it all together, the unsung hero, and i would follow her into any supernatural dimension. period no tampon.

⁀ ⊹ ₊ “Go on. Be brave, love.”

𖣠 professor jacob grimes:

FUCK YOU. his entire existence in this book is a testament to how even in death, some people just can't stop being trash.


── 𖣠 my thoughts and overview:

let's get into the drama, the tension, the 'are they gonna kiss or murder each other?' vibe that is the relationship between alice and peter. it was executed so damn well. they are the quintessential academic rivals to lovers, but make it high-stakes, life-or-death, and literally in hell. their constant competition, their barbed banter, the way they simultaneously infuriate and rely on each other was just perfection. their whole journey throughout hell was a massive rollercoaster. one minute i was giggling at their passive-aggressive arguments, the next i was tearing up at a moment of genuine vulnerability between them. the slow burn, the forced proximity, the mutual goal despite everything, it’s all there, and it's giving everything i ever wanted from an enemies-to-lovers trope.

the plot itself was done so well. fadhee and i were constantly on edge, genuinely scared about what fresh hell (pun intended) was going to happen next.

BUT. and there's always a but lol. there was so much information dumping in this book, especially in the middle section, that i did find myself sort of bored at times. my eyes glazed over during some of the more detailed magical theory or historical lore dumps. it didn't detract too much from the overall experience because the characters and stakes always pulled me back in, but it definitely broke the flow a few times. also, if you’re expecting HUGE, earth-shattering plot twists that leave your jaw on the floor, you might be a little disappointed. i actually guessed the ending right before it happened. however, even though i saw it coming, the execution was still so good that it didn't diminish the impact. certain parts truly made me want to rip my hair out in frustration, or scream laugh at the sheer absurdity, but the journey and the ending were worth every single bit of it.

if you’re a fan of dark academia with a heavy dose of fantasy, a dash of mythological elements, and a chef's kiss academic rivals-to-lovers romance as a subplot, this book is for you. it's gritty, it’s smart, it's emotionally resonant, and it will have you questioning your own life choices (and your professors). miss author has once again proven why she's one of the most exciting voices in modern fantasy fiction.

lastly, a very big thank you to my bestie fadhee for reading this with me. i couldn't have done this without you. love you!!

tropes:
─ dark academia
─ academic rivals to lovers
─ a journey to hell
─ betrayals
─ use of chalk and magick
─ mentions of ancient concepts
─ mentions of different mythologies

thank you netgalley and harper voyager for the e-arc! all thoughts are my own!

[enzoreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

L’enfer c’est les AUTRES
Rebecca Kuang tu es un génie vous vous rendez pas compte des LAYERS de ce livre c’est incroyable

[s.penkevich [mental health hiatus]]

WE HAVE A COVER! Again. It comes and goes so like...enjoy it again in case it goes. Kuang is once again blessed with a good cover and I kind of love that it looks like the art on a 90s computer game box (the one that has no relation to the actual gameplay art).
The release of this book is going to cause so much mass joy on here you'll be able to see it from space or something.

[jude⋆°. (IS EDITING REVIEWS)]

academic rivals to lovers set in hell?!?! oh she is going to serve so hard.

[manas]

time to be hella confused 🥲

[♡ waniya ♡ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dear Rebecca,

What went so wrong in my love for you, hm? Did I not find you an untested, unpolished author and pass you with flying colours? Did I not defend you against the rightful arguments that your debut novel—The Poppy War—was simply a fantastic, banal caricature of the Sino-Japanese War? Did I not disregard the fact that, if you stripped the entirety of The Poppy War trilogy off of its fantastic elements, it would assume the face of a history book—because you, like an insentient mimeograph, copied word for word actual historical events and shoved them into your novel, believing in your hubris that the average reader wasn’t capable of pointing out these acts of plagiarism?

You were good, Rebecca. Not great, but good. You had potential. You could create. And I loved you. I really did.

Then came Babel. What a marvel it was; in didacticism, repetition, and blatant slights to the reader’s intelligence. You badgered me, prodded at my patience, fed me your opinions as facts, and I could have forgiven it all in the name of love if you hadn’t broken the one, very, very sacred promise a writer makes to their reader: I will not think for you, dear reader.

But you did.

Colonialism. What a concept. You wanted to speak to us of the bane of society, of the plague my ancestors endured, of the bloodied trains that carried my family from Kashmir to Punjab after the British were done ravaging our lands—leaving us bitter with a perennial animosity when once we were an amiable lot. But despite my familiarity with this sickness, you didn’t trust me with it. You thought me deaf and dumb and blind. You believed that, unless you repeated the same idea a million times, I would not admit it into my thick brain. You thought of me as the British once did: a lesser race.

For a few long moments, I became disillusioned with you. In a childish tantrum I unfollowed you on Instagram, only to follow you right back the next day. I took a deep breath. Babel was your mistake. You were human, and I found it my duty to forgive you. And forgive I did.

But now you’ve made the same mistake with Katabasis. You wrote sentences like, “You know very well what a heap is. You know it when you see it. It is like porn.” You called magic magick. You introduced me to two insufferable characters who my friends and I would gladly bludgeon to death with hammers. Alice Law is a self-insert. I know. Peter Murdoch is your fiancé-insert. I know that too. You’d actually be surprised at how much I know, if you actually cared about your reader.

I didn’t want Socrates, Rebecca. I didn’t want Plato, Archimedes, Pythagoras, Dante, or Virgil. I wanted you. But you’re so incredibly busy trying to make sure I remember you went to Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale. You’re shaking me violently by the shoulders and screaming, “I’M SMART! I’M SMART! I’M SMART!” And your book suffers for it. I can believe you are a smart student, Rebecca, but never that you are a smart writer.

Katabasis is regressive, doctrinal, and autocratic. It is a fool’s guide to hell. It has no flair, no true emotion, nothing to say that the reader doesn’t already know. It looks busy while doing nothing. Alice is Robin from Babel. Robin is Rin from The Poppy War. Rin is Alice from Katabasis. Nothing separates one character from another. My brevity and sense of literary propriety are failing me the longer I try to pen my thoughts about Katabasis.

Rebecca, you made hell boring. Hell. BORING. What is wrong with you? Why must you torture me like this? Should I fall to my knees, press my cheek against your feet, and beg for mercy because I didn’t get a master’s degree from Oxford or Cambridge, nor pursued a doctorate at Yale? Is that my crime? Is the real crime not the fact that you are conceited in your belief that the average reader is stupid, while you are so incredibly smart, and that’s why you must hammer the nails of exposition into our skulls instead of doing what the better writer does—showing instead of telling?

Rebecca. Oh, Rebecca. We will never be friends again. We won’t even be acquaintances. The only natural relationship I can see us forming is that of foes. What a shame. I don’t think you’ll ever change, and I know that I can’t love you like this.

So this is goodbye. I leave you to the BookTok masses, to the timorous, vociferating few who’ll claim, “Katabasis wasn’t for you because you’re ignorant/stupid/sterile/unimaginative/hateful,” and to those who’ll never know how I loved you once.

I’m sorry—and please know—it wasn’t me. It was you.

Yours, (although not anymore, I suppose)
Waniya.

[iris ᵕ̈ ia]

leaving a star everytime i think about this book
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆


HAPPY RELEASE DAYYYYYYYYYYYY (is penn bookstore locked in...do u think they have copies...bc no joke i will buy that asap...)

[Youssra · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

This was a good book; very well-written, well-researched, with an interesting premise. You can tell that a lot of hard work went into this book. However, I was never gripped by it and just found myself indifferent throughout most of the book. This was largely due to two things:

1. Alice was insufferable. I found her so so unlikable. I don't know if this was done on purpose or not, but for almost 80% of the book, I was praying for her downfall😅😅 Again, maybe Kuang meant for her to be so unlikable? Maybe I'm the problem? I just did not relate to this girl at all. Going to hell to rescue your professor whom you hate because he could open doors for you as far as being a Magician just did not sit right with me for a motive. (there is also another reason but it's a spoiler and even that reason was not enough to convince me) I think this is a me problem though.. maybe other readers will find that motive to be sufficient and I think that would make the reading experience much better!

2. THE MATH. Listen, I knew going into this that it would be educationally heavy and I actually don't mind learning while reading any genre of book; in fact, I prefer it. However, in this book, it felt like the author was trying to smack me upside the head with all the info she knows, from philosophy to theoretical math and physics and everything in between. I don't mind a book challenging me, but I do mind a book boring me😅 It's not like I didn't understand what she was saying; she actually explained them pretty well, but will I retain this HUGE amount of information? Signs point to no😅 I just think this book was too heavy handed with all the theoretical jargon. AGAIN, totally a me problem, and this might be some other readers' cup of tea.


The beauty of opinions.


My favorite Parts:

1. Achilles the cat was the real mvp of this book.

2. I liked Peter and he deserves better than Alice.✋

3. The themes touched upon in the novel were interesting (feminism, women in the work field, sexism, ambition, abuse of power, stress on students, existentialism...) However, they were nothing new or revolutionary? Like nothing new was added to the discussion of these topics..at least for me.


Just to reiterate, this is a very good book, just not a good or memorable book FOR ME. This maybe due to the fact that books about academia never really grip me. As a teacher, I am up to my ears in academia, so reading about it as well might be subconsciously icking me😅

Also, my buddy reader Ashlyn actually dnfed this one😭 hope we have a better buddy read next 💖

[kitkat]

- preread 💚 -
guys… i got the arc!!! ack im so happy 🥹🥹🥹
———
did anybody see this and totally freak out?! i haven't even read any RF Kuang books yet 😅😅

>> thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc! <3

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spoiler Free 5-min Review Video:
https://youtu.be/9FuR90gz5n4

Personally I think this is Kuangs best book yet. I loved it.

Katabasis is about two graduate students who journey into hell to try and save their advisors soul. It draws on Dante's Inferno and lots of philosophy, but I think it's a pretty accessible (albeit slower paced) book. This book has LAYERS but it gets at things like different ideas of the afterlife, the treatment of women and minorities in academia, academic and workplace abuse among others. It's smart and nuanced, and Alice is a great main character. I really feel like Kuangs character work has developed with this book and she nails the landing with how this ends.

It is indeed a journey, both literally through the different parts of hell, and figuratively as our main character reflects on her life and grows. It's set in an alternate version of our world where magick exists and is an academic subject. I can't say too much about it without spoilers, but I absolutely recommend it!

It's not a quick read - it's the kind of book that requires close attention and space to think. I read it over a couple of months and I'm glad I didn't rush it. That said, I DON'T think you need to have a background in philosophy or have read Dante's Inferno to enjoy and understand this. If you have read those things, you will probably get an added layer of depth, but it seems designed to be relatively accessible as long as you have some patience. Personally though, it's one of my favorite things I've read this year. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.

[nika.ex.libris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A HUGE THANK YOU to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the ARC!

I love Kuang's style!

I liked that we set off on our journey right away, even if it felt a bit abrupt.

I was immediately drawn into the atmosphere, and I started building some theories (I don't know why; I didn't get anywhere with them. I really need to stop trying to predict the endings of books)

This book reminded me of a mix of Babel and Ninth House, as well as Alice in Wonderland! Philosophy, mathematics, wildness and darkness, life and death.

“If he/she won't go to hell with you, why do you need him/her?”

Honestly, there were moments when I was bored and wanted more action (?). But at the same time, the book made me think.

What is life, and are we really living it, or are we just missing out on what’s important while chasing after what’s not?

What disappointed me was the FMC; perhaps it was because I didn’t understand her, I didn’t share her feelings, and I didn't like her actions in the past.

The whole book is from the FMC’s perspective, and there’s also a dual timeline; only one chapter is dedicated to the MMC, whom I liked, he's like a cinnamon roll, and I teared up at his story.

At times, I laughed at the beginning, and at other times, I found myself tearing up.

The rivals to lovers trope, oh, thank you! I liked that they were rivals for quite a while, with a bit of hatred, but despite that, they were also friends. The descriptions of the moments from the past when they spent time together made my heart clench!

After the ending, I don’t know what to write or how to describe my feelings. It wasn’t a disappointment, but it wasn’t what I expected either. Still, I found myself teary over the book Rebecca again, though for a more personal reason this time.

What is the purpose of this journey, to rescue the professor, or something else?

Idea: 5/5
Plot: 4/5
Emotions: 4/5
Characters: 3/5 (Peter 4.5/5)

• Hell
• Dark academia
• Rivals to lovers
• Toxic professor

‼️Warnings:
Child death, Gore, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Violence, Chronic illness, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks

[emma]

if i had a nickel for every time one of my most anticipated releases was about dark academia enemies to lovers college students entering hell, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's kind of weird it happened twice