• Author: R.F. Kuang
• Series: Standalone
• Genre: Fantasy
• Star Rating: 3.75 stars
• Gifted by Publisher: Yes

Plot: 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.

Now for those of you who don’t know I dnfd Babel. Unfortunately, I found it to be slow-paced with a lot of info-dumping about stuff I couldn’t personally follow. So when I heard about Katabasis I was nervous that I would feel the same way. This was to be another book focusing on a university institution with scholars and complicated magic. Had I read this before? No, of course now. The thing that drew me to this book was the note of a trip to Hell and the two academic rivals falling in love on their descent. This element intrigued me. I have been loving romance in books more and more so I was excited to see how this goes considering Kuang’s track record of tragic/complicated romances.

Starting off with the things that I loved about this book. Kuang’s concept of Hell was so fresh and creative. I loved seeing what element of academia was going to be connected to what circle of Hell. Her interpretation of each court was exciting and I loved how she combined different elements of different cultures to create her own version of Hell. 

I also enjoyed the complexity of Alice and Peter. These two, especially Alice because we get more of her POV, are flawed and unlikable people. They are nuanced and layered and I loved going through the book and slowly, page by page, seeing the wider picture of who these individuals are. I always feel that Kuang writes great complicated and unlikable characters and it made for a more engaging experience being frustrated by these twos foibles. Alice is headstrong, stubborn, intelligent and competitive. She views herself above others and acts accordingly and Peter is ironically the exact same. That’s what I enjoyed so much about these two – the fact they are the exact same but they don’t realise it. 

The psychological elements of this novel of academic competition, gender discussion and honestly classic textbook manipulation on old Professor Grimes part was so enticing. I actually preferred the backstory scenes of seeing how these two interacted with each other and Grimes a lot more than I did the scenes in Hell. I feel that the characters felt more robust and real outside of Hell.

I also really enjoyed how Kuang plays with you as a reader slowly drip feeding you information chapter by chapter as you start off hating these obnoxious characters but slowly begin to understand more of who they are and how they got to literally going to Hell for some arsehole.

Moving on to the things that didn’t really work for me as such. Like I said I found myself enjoying more of the chapters set in Cambridge itself rather than Hell. I loved Kuang’s concept of Hell, fresh, exciting and not really done before. But I wanted more from her execution. We skated past the courts and I wanted to dive more into each realm I wanted more detail, more depth, more Hell ironically. The scenes outside of Hell felt tangible to me. Maybe it’s because it’s based on reality and not just an authors interpretation but you could feel Kuang’s own experiences through the Cambridge chapters and I felt those chapters were where Kuang was writing her best but when we were in Hell I just felt that I wanted more.

Another thing that I struggled with, which was something I struggled with in Babel, was the philosophical info-dumping. R.F. Kuang is an insanely smart woman. Incredibly smart. Kuang loves to drop a bit of scholarly information at the reader which was fun at first but about 100 pages in I just got bored of reading more info dumps on philosophers, theologians, mathematicians etc. It felt less about facilitating the story and more about cramming as much information as she could into 500 or so pages. These info dumps slowed the pace right down for me and I ended just skimming paragraphs of information because I also knew they only really served as the characters showing off to each other and in the grand scheme of things that didn’t matter too much to the rest of the story.

My other critique is a small one. I wanted more romance. A lot more romance. I was expecting to really see these characters fall in love and I was a bit underwhelmed by the romance as I turned that final page. Let me be in my lover girl era!

Overall, I did enjoy this. The characters were incredibly interesting, Hell exciting but ironically the scenes on Earth were more psychologically demanding and engaging! I just wish we would see less info dumping from Kuang.