chronicallybookish | Katabasis
How it Works Bookshop
Publishing Team Contact
Log in or Sign up
Katabasis
R. F Kuang
Save to Your Books
Bookshop
Amazon
100% of affiliate revenue supports chronicallybookish
Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld.
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 very same conclusion.
With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like.
But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn’t always the answer, and there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies… or lead to their doom.
Show more
Get the Bindery app
Posts about this title from chronicallybookish
chronicallybookish\
\
Kaley\
\
• Sep 15 2025
a very yappy vibes-based fall tbr
I was VERY yappy when I filmed this buckle in besties #booktok #toberrad #falltbr #fallbooks #tbrlist
14 books
chronicallybookish\
\
Kaley\
\
• Sep 15 2025
rf kuang scares me and i don't know where to start with her books
RF Kuang scares me idk if I’m smart enough for this but I WANT TO BE #booktok #kfkuang #katabasis #fantasybooks #darkacademia
5 books
Posts about this book from across Bindery
Betty's Bookish Thoughts\
\
Betty\
\
• May 10
Join for free
Welcome to Betty Bookish Thoughts!
Consider this a mini introduction to my bookish taste and loves!
If I can’t choose just one genre to love, why not all?! 🥰 There are too many books and authors I admire whose characters and words speak to me and make their worlds feel real. Let me know which books resonate with you, and I’d love to hear your own bookish responses as well (in particular, I want to know which books made you ugly cry 🤭)!
42 books
Peppered Ink\
\
Mary\
\
• Apr 15
Join for free
\
\
Join for free or login](https://marysmanybooks.binderybooks.com/item/DmiqUX99B4tM8gOBqFR2/)
By Appointment Only: UK Graduation Vlog!
My Master's graduation was in February, and I FINALLY got a chance to sit down and tell you all about it!
1 book
3
2
Peppered Ink\
\
Mary\
\
• Mar 11
Join for free
A New Liquor in the Library! 🥰
It's been a minute!
10 books
3
2
Stuff Celine Reads\
\
Celine\
\
• Feb 16
Join for free
26 books to read in 2026
"or how bookstagram got me again."
26 books
3
4
Ronnica Reads\
\
Ronnica Fatt\
\
• Jan 31
Join for free
My 5 best reads of 768 books in 2025.
My 5 best reads of 768 books in 2025. #bestbooks2025 #booktok
5 books
Alysha Fortune Reads\
\
Alysha\
\
• Jan 14
Join for free
Women Fantasy Authors that arent romantasy
Here is my completed list of fantasy and scifi books written by women that aren’t Romantasy! #books #booktok #bookstagram #booksta #bookworm #fantasybooks #fantasy #scifi #Romantasy #womenauthors
30 books
3
Written Reveries\
\
Krystal\
\
• Dec 31 2025
Join for free
Best Book I Read Each Month in 2025 Part I
Best Book I Read Each Month in 2025
6 books
2
Discotopia | Diverse Books\
\
Disco (he/they)\
\
• Dec 30 2025
Join for free
Hi folks! \
\
The year is almost up, here’s my last bookish roundup! All books by BIPOC authors with BIPOC MCs.\
\
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna\
\
Cosy, cute, found family, zombie rooster. My top BIPOC read of the year, and I blurbed the proof!\
\
\
\
Red City by Marie Lu\
\
Rival alchemists, one Chinese, one Indian. An incredible fantasy world with high stakes and a heart wrenching romance.\
\
(S)kin by Ibi Zoboi\
\
A verse novel about Caribbean fire witches, family secrets, and two teenage girls trying to survive their inner nature.\
\
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones\
\
An incredible indigenous historical vampire book, the writing is dense but impeccable.\
\
Wicked Flavors by Azalea Crowley\
\
An autistic doll collector strikes a supernatural deal a mysterious antique dealer with a cane (both are also mixed heritage). Absolute carnage ensues.\
\
Dulhaniyaa by Talia Bhatt.\
\
A Desi lesbian romance with a transfemme love interest. Dancing, romance and bonkers Bollywood vibes.\
\
Songs for Ghosts by Clara Kumagai.\
\
A queer Japanese boy finds a century old diary of a woman who sings for ghosts. Beautiful Madam Butterfly retelling. \
\
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang\
\
Two PHD students, one Chinese, travel to academic hell to find their supervisor. It’s basically one long in-joke/nod to academia, which I enjoyed, but definitely not for everyone!\
\
Here to Slay by Radhika Sanghani\
\
Buffy but with sapphic British-Indian demon slayers. SO fun.\
\
Marigold Mind Laundry by Junguen Yun\
\
A bittersweet, melancholy Korean fantasy about a lonely immortal woman opening a laundry to wash away people’s bad memories, finding a new family along the way.\
\
Happy New Year everyone!\
\
Disco x\
\
Join for free or login
Top 10 BIPOC books of 2025
9 books
Tales Tavern\
\
Estelle\
\
• Dec 5 2025
Join for free
Birthday Book Haul!
Book birthday haul! . . . . . . . #booktok #books #fantasybook #romantasybooks #medievalfantasy
2 books
somenoveltea's bindery\
\
Maddie\
\
• Dec 4 2025
Join for free
November Reading Wrap-Up
november was actually p solid i cannot lie #booktok #monthlyreadingwrapup #bookreview #readingwrapup #novemberreadingwrapup
15 books
1
Skies Press\
\
Emma\
\
• Nov 25 2025
Join for free
Guess what I've got for you today...\
\
...\
\
...\
\
I think that's enough to keep it out of the image preview, so....\
\
\
\
Ta-daaaaa! Subscribers actually got this a couple weeks ago so shout out to you guys for keeping it a secret in the discord.\
\
For those of you who don't know the lore here, let me give you a little background. Yes, you are reading that correct, that says this is announcing the 2024 Best of Books winners. In November. of 2025.\
\
I wish I had a reasonable excuse for this, I really do...but I don't. I genuinely can't even tell you why I didn't release this in January like I was supposed to or why I haven't released it in the many months that these images have been sitting in my Canva projects, but from the bottom of my heart I have no idea. Anyway, it has now been almost a full year since we first started the process of nominating books for our Best of Books 2024 and for the love of god I need this to not be hanging over my head anymore. I say that as though there was literally anything or anyone but my own damn self keeping me from getting this out, BUT THERE WASN'T.\
\
You ever get a text or an email from someone that you don't reply to right away and then you kind of forget about it until it's a few days later and you go "oh my god I need to reply to that" but you've remembered at 1am and that's not a reasonable hour to text someone so you'll do it in the morning, and then you wake up in the morning and for many more mornings until the next time you remember it's suddenly been weeks and now it's awkward but you really should reply to it but you put it off because now you're embarrassed and then the longer you wait the worse it gets so you just never reply and suddenly you've ignored someone you really meant to get back to?\
\
That's normal...right? Anyway that's basically what has happened here and I refuse to have this sitting on my dusty, unseen to-do list any longer so HERE are the winners of our 2024 Best of Books:\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
And there we have it! I AM FREE. Free to get started all over again on our 2025 nominations...
A SURPRISE ALMOST A YEAR IN THE MAKING (or, ya know, a year late...if you want to be technically correct about it I guess)
13 books
24
R&R Reads\
\
Ebony\
\
• Nov 13 2025
Join for free
\
\
Join for free or login](https://randrreads.binderybooks.com/item/MgFTvpoORmWDjM17IPcX/)
(Review) Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
1 book
2
1
Skies Press\
\
Emma\
\
• Nov 12 2025
Join for free
Guess what I've got for you today...\
\
...\
\
...\
\
I think that's enough to keep it out of the image preview, so....\
\
\
\
Okay, so if you don't know the lore here, let me give you a little background. Yes, you are reading that correct, that says this is announcing the 2024 Best of Books winners. In November. of 2025.\
\
I wish I had a reasonable excuse for this, I really do...but I don't. I genuinely can't even tell you why I didn't release this in January like I was supposed to or why I haven't released it in the many months that these images have been sitting in my Canva projects, but from the bottom of my heart I have no idea. Anyway, it has now been almost a full year since we first started the process of nominating books for our Best of Books 2024 and for the love of god I need this to not be hanging over my head anymore. I say that as though there was literally anything or anyone but my own damn self keeping me from getting this out, BUT THERE WASN'T. \
\
You ever get a text or an email from someone that you don't reply to right away and then you kind of forget about it until it's a few days later and you go "oh my god I need to reply to that" but you've remembered at 1am and that's not a reasonable hour to text someone so you'll do it in the morning, and then you wake up in the morning and for many more mornings until the next time you remember it's suddenly been weeks and now it's awkward but you really should reply to it but you put it off because now you're embarrassed and then the longer you wait the worse it gets so you just never reply and suddenly you've ignored someone you really meant to get back to?\
\
That's normal...right? Anyway that's basically what has happened here and I refuse to have this sitting on my dusty, unseen to-do list any longer so HERE:\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
I AM FREE. Free to get started all over again on our 2025 nominations...\
\
Upgrade for $12 or login
Hey, uh...surpriiiiiise!
you'll never guess what's in here
13 books
7
Mareas\
\
Marines\
\
• Oct 27 2025
Join for free
my tbr is out of control
12 books off and 8 books on 😅
8 books
12
3
Inkspoken Books\
\
amanda.the.bookish\
\
• Oct 26 2025
Join for free
Instagram Post Roundup! I thought you'd like to see everything I posted last week; with links and everything! Enjoy my darlings. 🍂💛😁\
\
\
\
Title - When We Were Monsters\
\
Author - Jennifer Niven | @jenniferniven\
\
Publisher - Knopf Books for Young Readers | @getunderlined\
\
Release Date - September 2nd 2025\
\
Synopsis -\
\
At an elite boarding school, 8 students are selected for an exclusive program, but only one will walk away with a lifechanging opportunity to realize their creative dreams.\
\
Effy is piecing together a story about the tragic betrayal that led to her mother’s death. Arlo hopes to publish a novel—but he’s also trying to start a new chapter with Effy after he broke her heart and ghosted 3 years earlier. Everyone has a compelling reason to be there—they all want a big break—but only the most ambitious will prevail as the students are eliminated one by one.\
\\\______________________________________________________________________________\
\
\
\
Title: Katabasis\
\
Author: R.F. Kuang\
\
Publisher: Harper Voyager\
\
Release Date: August 26th 2025\
\
Synopsis:\
\
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.\
\\\_____________________________________________________________________________\
\
\
\
Book Info\
\
Title: You’ve Found Oliver\
# in Series: 2\
\
Author: Dustin Thao\
\
Publisher: Penguin Teen\
\
Release Date: September 30th 2025\
\
Synopsis:\
\
It’s been a year since Oliver's best friend, Sam, died. Even though Oliver knows he won’t get a response, he can’t stop texting Sam’s number, especially as the anniversary of his death approaches.\
\
Then one day he accidentally hits the call button, and someone picks up.\
\\\____________________________________________________________________________\
\
\
\
Title: Air Awakens - 10th Anniversary Edition\
\
Author: Elise Kova\
\
Publisher: Silver Wing Press\
\
Release Date: SE - October 15th 2025 (Original edition published in 2015)\
\
Synopsis: \
\
Vhalla Yarl was just a library apprentice, until she saved the crown prince with magic that wasn’t supposed to exist. Now the Empire wants her power, sorcerers want to claim her, and the crown prince - the most dangerous man alive - is magically bonded to her.\
\
Accepting her magic means risking everything she’s ever known. Resisting it could cost her the power to protect the people she loves. And as war looms, Vhalla is forced to choose between her freedom, her heart… or her life.\
\\\_____________________________________________________________________________\
\
\
\
Title: The Listeners\
\
Author: Maggie Stiefvater\
\
Publisher: Hodderscape (Fairyloot Edition)\
\
Release Date: June 3rd 2025\
\
Synopsis: January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.\
\
Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.\
\\\______________________________________________________________________________\
\
\
\
Title: Don’t Forget to Breathe\
\
Authors: Sara Waxelbaum + Brianna R. Shrum\
\
Publisher: Epic Reads\
\
Release Date: October 21st 2025\
\
Genre: YA Sapphic Romance\
\
Synopsis:\
\
Zoe’s always had a plan. Ballet has been her past, present, and future for so long that she’s never even considered otherwise. It’s been the escape she’s always needed. \
\
Hanna’s rarely stayed in a place longer than a year. The greatest consistency she has is her piano playing, and her dad diving back into his Jewish faith every time her mom leaves on assignment. So when her senior year begins with yet another move to a new school, she’s not planning on putting down roots—she’s learned that hard way how that ends.\
\\\_____________________________________________________________________________\
\
\
\
Title - When They Burned the Butterfly\
\
Author - Wen-yi Lee\
\
Publisher - Tor Books\
\
Genre - Historical Sapphic Fantasy \
\
Release Date - October 21st 2025\
\
Synopsis - A fierce, glamorous sapphic fantasy reimagining the secret societies of postcolonial Singapore, for fans of Jade City, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and the feverish intensity of RF Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy. \
\
Singapore, 1972: Newly independent, a city of immigrants grappling for power in a fast-modernizing world. Here, gangsters are the last conduits of the gods their ancestors brought with them, and the back alleys where they fight are the last place where magic has not been assimilated and legislated away.\
\\\_______________________________________________________________________________\
\
\
\
Title: The NightBlood Prince\
\
Author: Molly X. Chang\
\
Publisher: Random House (Fairyloot Edition)\
\
Release Date: July 1st 2025\
\
Synopsis: Torn from her family as a child and raised in the palace to one day marry the Crown Prince of the most powerful empire in the land, Fei has only ever known loneliness. When the opportunity arises to seize her own destiny for the first time in her life, Fei sets out to hunt a legendary tiger, knowing it might cost her everything. What she doesn’t expect is to fall under the mercy of Yexue, the beautiful runaway prince from a rival kingdom. Blessed by the night, harboring a dangerous magic, and capable of commanding an army of deadly vampires, Yexue could be the key to Fei gaining more than just her freedom.\
\
Join for free or login
Books Featured This Week On My Bookstagram
8 books
5
3
Fat Forward Books\
\
Samantha Puc\
\
• Oct 8 2025
Join for free
Books I Read (and Loved) July-September 2025
16 books I read and loved in summer 2025.
13 books
4
R&R Reads\
\
Ebony\
\
• Oct 4 2025
Join for free
\
\
Join for free or login](https://randrreads.binderybooks.com/item/Oj9oilnBfXlJLczVbxdr/)
Q3: longest reading wrap up | july, august, september #bookrecommendations #bookreview
this didn't need to be that long...
thanks for watching!
20 books
3
Scribe Tribe\
\
Jahid\
\
• Oct 1 2025
Join for free
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang follows protagonists Alice Law and Peter Murdoch as they voyage into Hell to rescue their deceased professor, Jacob Grimes. The novel, while brilliant and ambitious in theory, is rendered frustratingly mundane due to incohesive storytelling and a refusal to fully engage in any of the conversations it attempts to have. Before we dive in, two important things must be noted: first, this will be filled with spoilers galore, and I will be referencing the ARC, not the published edition, since that is the copy I read, so the page count might differ slightly.\
\
To open, one of Katabasis’s defining flaws is its presentation of information. Almost nothing in the narrative feels earned, because information is not naturally revealed, it is simply given, largely in chunks. The novel goes on one too many self-indulgent tangents on history, mathematics, theory and even presents interludes that are meant to establish the world, but the placements of these interludes are inconsistent, do not tie directly into the story, and just feel lazy.\
\
Additionally there is a noticeable lack of foreshadowing. Two examples of effective foreshadowing can be found in Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir, and the Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin, spoilers ahead.\
\
In Gideon the Ninth, there is a character named Protesilaus. In Greek mythology, Protesilaus is the first hero to die at Troy, and in Gideon, Protesilaus is the first man who dies in the Lyctor Trials. In the Fifth Season, we discover that Essun, Syentite, and Damaya are all the same character, and one of the ways this is beautifully hinted at is by the fact that there is currently an environmental disaster taking place in Essun’s chapters, known as a “season”, and there is no mention of such an event in the POV’s of Syentite or Damaya, since they occur decades prior.\
\
In Katabasis, we are given the eventual knowledge that for the past year, Alice has been able to recall everything she’s ever seen perfectly due to a pentagram carved onto her skin by Professor Grimes. On page 152 it is said that, in regard to Alice, “her mind now functioned as an on-call encyclopedia”. The narrative, however, does not present Alice’s memory as anything otherworldly. In fact, like Peter, her memory is presented as something that is a product of rigorous academic study: they have good memories because they cannot suffer the consequences of having poor ones.\
\
The same issue occurs with Peter. We are told later in the narrative that his mystique, poor punctuality, and frequent absences are a result of his chronic illness. The explanation the narrative gives is that he is able to get away with this because he’s simply that brilliant. On page 341 he says, “No one resented him for his absences; they only got so much more excited when he showed up. Murdoch was a rare presence; his appearance a blessing. In a world defined by perception, Peter was learning now to construct a most compelling front. Geniuses could be excused any idiosyncrasy. They would forgive an ailing body, Peter determined, so long as they were intimidated by the mind. And oh, what a mind he would become.” \
\
The problem is that in Alice’s POV we are given no indication that Peter is struggling in any capacity. The text tells us that Peter’s brilliance allows him to bend the rules, and we are given no reason to doubt this explanation. As a result, the eventual revelation of his illness feels unearned, because the reader was never allowed to suspect or deduce it themselves. A red herring only works if it conceals the truth in plain sight. Here, “Peter’s genius” is presented not as a cover for his condition but as the only truth available, leaving no space for discovery.\
\
A potential solution would have been if the narrative allowed Alice to become curious. It is mentioned that after Peter’s worst flare up, he was picked up by an ambulance and taken to a hospital. Not a soul finds out this happened, which is a missed opportunity by the narrative to make this event the talk of the town: local ivy league darling found unresponsive in the bathroom and admitted to the hospital. Or better yet, Peter says himself on page 351, “six weeks later Peter returned on shaky feet to the department”. Considering the lengths the novel goes to highlight the connection between Alice and Peter (which doesn’t work because they have zero chemistry outside of proximity), it’s almost baffling that she didn’t wonder where he’d gone for a month and a half.\
\
This would have been a beautiful way to not only give the main character some agency, but to let the story follow a natural chain of events. Alice could have investigated and come to her own, incorrect conclusions that would have served the narrative function: planting the seed that Peter Murdoch is hiding something. The novel could have also tied this into her eidetic memory. For example: if Peter hid his weight loss incredibly well but Alice deduced it anyway since she remembered what his handwriting looked like pre-surgery when he weighed more and used more pressure to write. If she mentioned this to anyone it plants yet another seed: how could Alice Law possibly remember that?\
\
Let us now pivot to the subject of flashbacks. Katabasis falls into this trap, and it is made all the more glaringly obvious by the fact that we have a story that is quite literally set in Hell, yet almost all the relevant narrative information is revealed to us. . .through flashbacks. \
\
The most egregious display of this, is through two of the largest narrative reveals: that Peter has Crohn’s disease, and that Professor Grimes tried, almost forcefully, to have sex with Alice. From pages 300-323 and 334-356 this information is dumped on the reader through flashbacks. Peter and Alice are sitting in a hole in the ground in the circle of Violence, and they are confiding information that would have resonated on a much deeper level had the author not completely missed the opportunity to lean into Hell as a place of revelation of sin. \
\
Throughout this novel I found myself constantly asking: why set this story in Hell if Hell was going to be THIS underutilized? In response to this, I must mention House of Hades, by Rick Riordan, spoiler incoming.\
\
While in Tartarus with Annabeth, Percy winds up in a forest populated by demonic spirits. These spirits are able to inflict all the curses made on Percy from the monsters he’s killed over the years with their dying breaths. One of the curses does not affect Percy at all. It affects Annabeth. She calls for him, and when he tries to go to her, she is always out of reach, shouting his name, asking why he abandoned her. At first Percy doesn’t understand this curse, he says he’s never abandoned anyone. The spirits are too eager to remind him. Percy blanches. He says no. She’d never curse me. Except she did. Several books ago, in Battle of the Labyrinth, he met a goddess trapped on an island. She nursed him back to health, cared for him, and offered to keep him safe from the impending god war. Percy thought about it, almost acquiesced, but said no, his friends needed him, his family, the world. Annabeth. But he promised he would come back, he promised he wouldn’t forget about her, that he would make sure the gods freed her from her eternal prison. The truth hits Percy like a fist. He did none of those things. He forgot about her. He abandoned Calypso. The pain is twofold, because Percy has been manipulating his and Annabeth’s guide, a titan named Bob who lost his memory and found himself in the service of Hades as his janitor, due to Percy’s efforts in a previous book. Percy is forced to reconcile with his own negligence, he has been a terrible friend to Bob, and a worse one to Calypso.\
\
Hell, as presented in Katabasis, does not challenge Alice or Peter in nearly the same way. They are not forced to contend with one another’s darkness, or to address what they’ve done in their pasts that would make them worthy residents of these circles. The narrative loves to constantly remind us how smart Alice and Peter are, how brilliant and intellectual this book is, yet it doesn’t use Hell to PROVE what it’s telling us. Because Alice and Peter are scholars and Hell is this commonly researched and heavily documented phenomenon, the emphasis feels skewed. We spend more time on Peter and Alice conjecturing about Hell rather than experiencing it.\
\
Imagine this: drop Alice and Peter into the underworld, then have them find out Hell is nothing like anything that has been recorded anywhere. Maybe Dante, Milton, all the others, they got it wrong, or maybe everyone just perceives Hell differently. Regardless you've got these reason oriented individuals forced to reconcile with a realm that doesn't obey logic and that they know nothing about. Now they are able to do what obsessive, intellectual minds love to do: research. This would have given the reader the opportunity to learn about Hell with them, in real time through trial and error. Additionally, it would have allowed their academic backgrounds to directly impact the plot.\
\
The reason House of Hades worked so well is Percy and Annabeth’s time in Tartarus served as a catalyst for growth. And because no mortal had ever been to Tartarus, we went on a journey of discovery with the characters. As a result, HoH felt like an experience. Katabasis feels like an explanation, like I’m being lectured to. Yes, Alice and Peter discover a few things, like how blood is needed for chalk to work, or if you die in Hell it’s permanent, but they still largely know what to expect and where to go. They understand Hell on a fundamental level, and as a result, there is little room for explanation, because the narrator already possesses 80% of the requisite information\
\
And it must also be noted, Hell feels so incredibly underwhelming and poorly fleshed out due to the unimportance of the circles themselves. The characters breeze through the courts of Hell in an almost laughable amount of time. I’ve tallied the pages and done the math: roughly 35% of the novel is spent in the actual circles of Hell.\
\
There are 110 ten pages total of flashbacks, or roughly 20% of the narrative. Which means if you add that 20% to the remaining 45% of the novel, you get a book that is about Hell and its courts, yet 65% of the narrative is either a flashback or Alice and Peter traveling through Hell. One could make the argument that traveling is mildly interesting, except not really tho, cause Hell outside of the circles is bland. We are told on page 276, “Past Wrath, it all gets more classically infernal” and that never happens. There is almost nothing distinguishing most of the circles from real locations on Earth save a few distinct landmarks. Cruelty has a couple white structures with skeletal cages attached to them that are filled with Shades. Apart from that? Nothing but sand and dunes. The same for Tyranny, but with a tower, and on this tower the Greek furies: Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. Once you get past them? More dunes, and drifting pieces of paper that belong to the dissertations the Shades are writing. Mind you, these are supposed to be the deepest circles of Hell, and Alice says on page 389, as she is deep in the trenches of Tyranny, “She was dazed enough to find this pretty, this geometrical neatness.” I’m sorry, are we in Hell, or are we on Arrakis? There aren’t even any demons outside of the furies, which just feels like another example of dropping the ball. The back cover blurb describes Katabasis as “Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi”, but how is this uninspired version of Hell supposed to be comparable to Dante, which is known for being especially grim, when there aren’t even demons? Neither is this novel like Piranesi, because it takes itself way too seriously and lacks the whimsy and charm that allowed that novel to sing.\
\
It almost feels like because Hell is such unfamiliar territory that the author is choosing to tackle it through a familiar lens: which is academia, her background. Better yet, this really just feels like self-insert fanfiction. Rebecca wrote this novel while pursuing her doctorate at Yale, and Alice is clearly meant to be her, and Peter her husband, and just like her, the two of them are pursuing their PhDs. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Hell, my debut novel, A Poor Man’s Prose, started out as a self-insert fanfiction, but after rigorous rounds of editing, I was forced to get grounded in who these characters actually are, where their wounds live, what they want, and the obstacles in the way of their goals. Katabasis feels like it never had a microscope held up to its premise. Is this a story about academia in Hell because that’s what the story needed to be, or because that’s what Rebecca wanted it to be?\
\
Honestly? There are moments the novel feels like it’s suffering from personality disorder, it’s so thematically unsure of itself. The narrative attempts to dip its toes in satire, like with the offhand mention that creative writers always end up in the Circle of Pride, or there being an entire bazaar in the City of Dis dedicated to providing Shades with writing tools to help them craft the perfection dissertation so they can reincarnate. And right when it looks like the book might be having fun with itself, the momentum is ruined by yet another exposition dump.\
\
Even its initial premise of “academia is hell” is abandoned a fourth of the way in. Pride is depicted as a library, and Desire a student center, but none of the other circles are presented like this. There’s so much that could’ve been done here. Take Desire. It’s a bunch of people having sex, and indulging, and it’s portrayed as a den of depravity which. . .not sure how this is any different from Lust, but okay. My question becomes this, why not use the circles of Hell to facilitate conversations around academic abuse, and mental health, situations which directly tie to Alice and Peter? \
\
Imagine for a moment, if the circle of treachery from Dante’s Inferno had been kept (I am still incredibly unclear on why Katabais removedcircles like Sloth and Envy, to replace them with new ones such as Cruelty and Tyranny, only to not do anything interesting with the additions), this would have been the best place to reveal that Grimes stole Peter’s work and address plagiarism/academic theft. \
\
The circle of Wrath could have portrayed Grimes’ silent fury towards Alice after she rejected him and/or even explored how anger manifests and expresses itself in these settings. Picture if this played with Peter’s own darkness, and he was forced to confront the murderous thoughts he had when Grimes betrayed him. That could have given him some depth, he was otherwise severely lacking. Even Alice! Homegirl wanted to bring Grimes’ soul back into his Frankenstein-esque body fully aware this would cause him an unreasonable (albeit deserved) amount of pain. If that isn’t wrath, idk what is. \
\
Pride would have been a beautiful circle to reveal Peter’s stubbornness with his illness and Alice’s decision to choose Grimes as a professor knowing his reputation. Circling back to Desire, this was the perfect setting to foreshadow what happened with Grimes and Alice. In this circle, yes, Alice has a panic attack, but the narrative makes this seem almost as a physical response to the vulgarness of sex, and how carnal it is, this mashing of bodies, flesh pressed against flesh. In fact, despite what happened, despite how Professor Grimes is a known womanizer and can’t keep his hands to himself, Alice is adamant that he isn’t in this circle (which, sidebar, Alice’s contradictory and inconsistent thoughts towards Grime are a whole issue and a half). If her insistence was “he’s not here” as a way to avoid being reminded of what he almost did to her, that would have worked, but that isn’t the route the narrative takes. \
\
It could have even used Desire to showcase professors taking advantage of and sleeping with their students. Why not have Desire be a continuous loop of people in power in their worst moments mistreating their station? Or better yet, why not actually use Desire to explore the kind of wounds that live in students? Look at everything Alice has willingly subjected herself to for a scrap of approval from Professor Grimes. Is that not a desire for validation? Imagine what it would have done for her character and arc if Hell held up a mirror and forced her to confront sinners/shades who shared her same hurts and flaws? Imagine if demons played active roles in these circles, i.e, as the professors, and the faculty, and fed on negative emotions, so they perpetuated the cycle of academic abuse to feed on it? There is a whole metaphor in there about the continuation of harm in academia and how it is a system people are willingly participating in and benefiting from. \
\
You see what I'm getting at? Right now, Alice and Peter confront their pasts in ways that don’t feel earned because we are constantly reminded of how we are in Hell, and yet Hell never feels like anything outside of mildly interesting set dressing. Hell would have been a perfect catalyst, since both of them are too stubborn to change unless forced, and these circles could have addressed the realities of academia while also giving these characters solid arcs. Plus, it would have allowed Peter and Alice to be vulnerable and actually get to know one another outside of all the trauma bonding they do courtesy of having Grimes as their advisor. This could have allowed the romance aspect to at least become somewhat salvaged.\
\
I would have also loved if Hell forced these two to interrogate their own internalized toxicity. The novel brings up competition between women in academia, and how rare it is for there to be camaraderie between women in the field, yet offers absolutely no pushback or deeper conversation regarding Alice’s own internalized misogyny and her attitude towards women. On page 300 she says, “She couldn’t stand those screeching activists who believed the only politically just thing was to become a lesbian.” She even attributes the reason to Elspeth’s suicide as her not wanting it badly enough (Elspeth as a whole could warrant at least another two pages. Her helping Alice at the end of the book felt both out of character and entirely unearned. She was entirely in the right to turn her back on them the way she did). \
\
The novel wants to attribute all of Alice and Peter’s self-destructive habits to their desire to win Professor Grimes’s approval almost as a way of saying “instructors do not realize how much power they wield over their students”, yet ignores how both Alice and Peter was deliberately self-sabotaging long before they even met Grimes. Peter, with his belief that suffering in silence and refusing to ask for help is somehow noble, and Alice, who glorifies all the ways in which she is able to neglect her basic needs. By far the largest issue is that the novel attempts to convince the reader that these characters have changed, but how can they, when they have not been forced to sit with and reconcile their demons? At the end of the novel, Katabasis wants you to believe that Alice is able to, finally, after everything, see Jacob Grimes for what he is. On page 522 it says, as she is contemplating him, “She had faced down the ends of time; had escaped from the Rebel Citadel; had vanquished the Kripkes; had ripped a cat open with her bare hands and eaten its heart and made its skull a shrine in the deserts of Dis. These sort of experiences were very transformative. They gave her a bit more clairty on–well, everything.” Here is the problem: Alice, from the very beginning, has always seen Jacob Grimes for what he is. She has had no delusions about his character. On page 302 she says, “It was her fault, see, because when she first heard that Professor Grimes had a problem keeping his hands to himself around female students, she’d felt a thrill of excitement. Oh sure-she’d professed disgust in public, and then in private wondered if she was pretty enough, delicate and thin enough, to attract that same attention.” The argument can be made, that Alice has not changed, not in the fundamental sense, and this evidenced by what is said on page 523, “Professor Grimes was not good at being dead, did not have the fortitude of mind, hadn’t come close to conquering Hell, and Alice found this deeply disappointing. It was all so unfair, she thought. You thought people were giants and they devastated you by being so human. This was the saddest thing. The loss of faith. If he really were a giant, she would have followed him still.” True growth would have been her choice to walk away from him regardless if he was a giant or not. It would not matter who he was or what he did, because she was the one who changed. Instead, her rejection of him is because he is changed, not she. Peter and Alice do not know themselves any better, only each other, and that is not at all the same thing.\
\
To wrap this up, because this has been a yap session and a half, Katabasis had huge lofty goals, none of which it was ultimately able to reach, leaving the reader with a book where the only interesting thing about it is the title.
Let's Talk About Katabasis
1 book
7
chronicallybookish\
\
Kaley\
\
• Sep 15 2025
a very yappy vibes-based fall tbr
I was VERY yappy when I filmed this buckle in besties #booktok #toberrad #falltbr #fallbooks #tbrlist
14 books
chronicallybookish\
\
Kaley\
\
• Sep 15 2025
rf kuang scares me and i don't know where to start with her books
RF Kuang scares me idk if I’m smart enough for this but I WANT TO BE #booktok #kfkuang #katabasis #fantasybooks #darkacademia
5 books
The Alchemist Society\
\
Shay\
\
• Sep 11 2025
Join for free
My First Bindery Video! Thoughts on Katabasis
2 books
1
The Coterie\
\
Mikah Mia Reads\
\
• Sep 11 2025
Join for free
\
\
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (feat. my anxiety nails RIP)\
\
🕯️🪦☕️📓\
\
“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.”\
\
Rating: 4 ⭐️\
\
Review: If you want to be enveloped by pure, undiluted dark-academia—something with angsty romance, a spiraling heroine, and a sharp critique of normalized academic abuse—READ KATABASIS.\
\
This follows two Cambridge graduate students’ descent into Hell. Their mission: to find their academic advisor and bring him back to the land of the living (let me just say—he’s a reeaaal piece of work).\
\
Something that I LOVED is that this follows the classic heroine’s journey story arc! There are still external forces at play, but the bulk of the action centers around Alice’s internal conflict and character growth.\
\
There’s a solid magic system (though Hell does make space for wonkiness). I rated it four stars because this flexibility led to some confusion on my end, and that was hard for me to entirely let go of.\
\
There are lots of literary allusions, but trust me!! If you’ve taken a high school English class, you can pick up on a lot of it! I’m sure there were plenty of references that went over my head but I still had a great time.\
\
All in all—prepare for things to get a little weird and just roll with it. And get ready to feel a rollercoaster of emotions and gain a new appreciation for heartfelt hugs and cups of tea 🥹](https://thecoterie.binderybooks.com/item/S8cv0ZRE78u8eh0OnxEm/)
REVIEW: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
1 book
1
Ezeekat Press\
\
Jaysen\
\
• Sep 4 2025
Join for free
\
\
Join for free or login](https://ezeekat.binderybooks.com/item/CbpbcPDKJPbmdVg6PY4a/)
EARLY BIRD VIEWING - Let's Play Tiny Book Shop Part Three!
Will I stop yelling at customers? Will I buy a coffee machine? And if I do, will I EVER remember to actually brew coffee?? Find out all this and more in this newest Let's Play of Tiny Book Shop!
Are any of you playing this game yet? and what do you think so far?
This is a new type of content for me, and I haven't done a whole lot of Video Game content in the past, but many of you know that Video Games are one of my passions as well as boardgames and books so I'd love to know what you thought of this video! Drop a comment and let me know!
Also, since this is a bookish game, I'd love to know what you're reading these days!
My Other Places:
Discord: https://discord.gg/5QqNANjdc7
Ezeekat Press Subscriber Community: https://ezeekat.binderybooks.com/
Beacons page with all my links: https://beacons.ai/ezeekat
3 books
5
10
Written Reveries\
\
Krystal\
\
• Sep 2 2025
Join for free
\
\
We'll be reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang for September Book Club! Have I already read this? Yes. Am I excited to reread with everyone? ALSO YES. I think I'll do the audio this go round, can't wait! Make sure to join the Discord to keep up with updates! SEE YOU IN HELL!](https://writtenreveries.binderybooks.com/item/loNnqnc6rGUv9806Gvxi/)
September Book Club....KATABASIS by R. F. Kuang
1 book
3
1
Ezeekat Press\
\
Jaysen\
\
• Sep 1 2025
Join for free
\
\
Upgrade for $5 or login](https://ezeekat.binderybooks.com/item/chQow8XIt2XSC6NBbWa7/)
VOTE NOW - October Book Club Poll
5 books
3
2
Rachel Skye Reads\
\
Rachel\
\
• Aug 31 2025
Join for free
August 2025 reading wrap up
August 2025 reading wrap up: 7 books: 3 romantasy, 1 contemporary romance, 1 high fantasy, 1 dark academia, and 1 litfic 📖 #augustreadingwrapup #readingwrapup #bookrecommendations #booktok
7 books
2
The Coterie\
\
Mikah Mia Reads\
\
• Aug 31 2025
Join for free
\
\
The votes are in and our September book club pick is Katabasis by R.F. Kuang! Be sure to join the Discord if you’d want to frantically scream-text your thoughts to other book club members 📱\
\
I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews from book influencers on this one. It sounds like the sort of book that readers either really love or really hate. Seeing as this will be my fourth R.F. Kuang book—I’ve read the Poppy War trilogy and Babel and enjoyed both—I’m hoping I like this too! Can’t wait to discuss with all of you ☺️](https://thecoterie.binderybooks.com/item/yHZTFFRJgez7Ws1TDIl3/)
SEPTEMBER BOOK CLUB PICK: KATABASIS 📜
1 book
3
The Inkborne Society\
\
Azhangia\
\
• Aug 27 2025
Join for free
\
\
Join for free or login](https://azhangia.binderybooks.com/item/OZaPbFp7scUEMSjhsB6B/)
September 2025 Book Club Pick: KATABASIS (R.F. Kuang)
1 book
9
Rachel Skye Reads\
\
Rachel\
\
• Aug 27 2025
Join for free
Ayyyyyyyy! By popular demand, we've launched a Katabasis by R.F. Kuang discussion group in the discord. I'm so happy ya'll are as obsessed as I am!\
\
*The Bindery Bot is not consistently auto-adding roles to new members, so if you are not assigned a Bindery role, message me with your email address and I'll manually add ya :)
Katabasis Read Along!
1 book
3
1
Rachel Skye Reads\
\
Rachel\
\
• Aug 24 2025
Join for free
I finished Katabasis (out Tuesday!) and it is my favorite R.F. Kuang book. Of course, I should preface that I’m still high off the ending which I literally read five minutes ago. \
\
This book is for women who cut their teeth fighting for a place in academic institutions that never respected them. It is for the kids who were deemed unlikable and built their self-esteem with impressive vocabulary words. It is for every student who couldn’t make eye contact with their professors, but desperately wanted their attention. It was written for me, an ex-evangelical using literature to process the trauma of being told she had to “save her father from going to hell.” Now, I choose to go myself, with R.F. Kuang as my Virgil.\
\
This was not a quick read. I really had to lock in, but once I did, I was fully immersed. I love when the setting of a book is so well developed that it becomes a character. Kuang’s Hell is not horrifying in a violent or gory sense (although there certainly is violence and gore- but only that which is perpetuated by the inhabitants themselves). Kuang’s Hell simply gives inhabitants exactly what they’ve asked for.\
\
This book is not for everyone. It is philosophical and lofty, but well-paced and unexpected. I cannot recommend it enough. This will be one that I am consistently recommending for the rest of my life.\
\
Join for free or login
Book Review: Katabasis
5⭐️ No Spoilers!
1 book
4
4