Like me, Alice Law is full of flaws. We are completely different people, and also one and the same. She's complicated, emotional, logical, ambitious. There were times I screamed and yelled at her for the decisions she made, but then she'd FEEL and I knew I was right there with her. Alice Law journeys into Hell as a last resort only to realize that's not how life works; there are always opportunities and choices. The journey she takes in this book is wild, tragic, and desperate.

The only other book l've read of Kuang is Babel, and this is a different kind of ride. I loved Katabasis for the journey, for the metamorphosis, for the wonderful, rich characters, and for the ending I didn't think we'd get (because I don't know if we deserved it) but hoped we would.

It's said that in reading stories we gain greater empathy; that even though it's a fictional world, we can expand our own array of emotions. This book, with all its logic and references, is a book to make you feel - and not judge.

My rating is anywhere between 4 and 5 stars. That ending automatically bumps it up to 5. (ARC provided by NetGalley)

It feels strange to call a book about hell a "fun romp," but this tongue-in-cheek adventure perfectly balances biting commentary on the exploitative nature of the PhD student/advisor relationships and philosophical reflection on relationships and mortality, as Alice Law and her frenemy Peter Murdoch voyage to the depths of hell to rescue their demanding and aloof Magick professor. Fans of Yellowface and Babel will find much to enjoy in Katabasis, which has elements of dark academia and complex interpersonal dynamics, as well as a healthy dose of scholarly meditation about death, love, and our obligations to each other.

This book was incredible for me, someone that doesn't know much about philosophy but loves going down wikipedia rabbit holes.

R.F. Kuang provides a philosophical romp through hell, as two postdoc students dive down into Hades to retrieve the soul of their professor. Kuang partners with some of the greats of literature - Dante, Milton, among others to give her own take on hell. The story begins promptly, with very little exposition, and ends just as quickly, but that gives all the more space for Kuang's vision of what hell might be like.

The intelligence of Kuang is on full display as she parses out complex philosophical and logical concepts while also ensuring they are accessible to the ignorant reader, while communicating in a light, matter-of-fact prose. But don't let that fool you. The story here is intense and graphic at times with borderline horror-like imagery. The climax brings a satisfactory end that resolves believably. The book overall reflects on the question, "What is hell to you?" Kuang provides the answer to that question for herself, but the reader will need to come to grips with their own interpretation of that inquiry.

This book was so good! I loved the dynamic between Alice and Peter. I thought that the analysis of academia and its impact on students as well as society was so interesting, especially as someone with a bachelors but nothing higher. The chapters of dialogue were definitely more interesting to me than the chapters of context and background information, but all of it was well written and thoroughly explained. The plot was well rounded, and I don’t feel like anything was left unanswered that should have been wrapped up.

this one’s for the intellectuals!
I love Kuang’s big brained writing, it takes a hot minute to get through her books bc not only are they long but pretty dense; she wants to make SURE the reader is educated and i love that about her. What <i>Babel</i> was to linguistics, <i>Katabasis</i> is to philosophy and history, and even a bit of religion, and i appreciate how much research Kuang put into it. It was a fun story, based on Dante’s Inferno, and i enjoyed following Alice, but the real win for me was definitely the writing itself - i love to learn!

Thanks to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for providing me with this ARC.

Let’s get straight to the point: a lot of people are calling Katabasis pretentious. I’m not bothered by that. Dark academia, by its nature, tends to be pretentious. It’s about intellectual obsession, philosophical musings, and the darker side of academia. If you’re into that, you’ll probably appreciate what Kuang is doing here.

If you enjoyed Ninth House or Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, you’ll likely find a lot to like in Katabasis. The academic atmosphere, morally ambiguous characters, and deep dive into knowledge as both a tool and a trap are all here. Kuang’s writing is rich with philosophy and mythology, and while it can get dense, it’s all intentional. It’s about challenging the reader to think rather than handing them easy answers.

The characters in this book are not here to be loved. They’re flawed, obsessive, and often hard to relate to. But that’s part of what makes the story interesting: these characters are consumed by their intellectual pursuits in a way that leads them down destructive paths. It’s not a tale of redemption, but a reflection of the costs of their obsessions.

If you’ve read Babel, you’ll notice some thematic overlap here. Both books explore the power of knowledge, but where Babel deals with language and empire, Katabasis looks more at the personal consequences of academia. It’s a bit more inward-focused, more concerned with the way the pursuit of knowledge can break a person down.

R.F. Kuang's unique imagining of hell is original. Hell adapting to it's travelers is a compelling idea and it makes sense that experiences in life would effect the nature of what punishment needs to be overcome for each deadly sin.

The creatures and inhabitants of hell are unique and richly described but from the beginning I had the feeling that the writing feels different from her other books. She might be experimenting, trying to make this one more accessible or quirky.
Cut out a few lines and this could of been in the YA section.
As an example...there are these very creative and original creatures of skeletal appearance with joints made of chalk and complex characteristics....and she calls them BONE THINGS.
Was there not some fictitious bestiary Alice could reference a better name from? Maybe in one of those italicized passages that directly explained the magical elements between chapters. (e.g. the one about chalk)

I felt those passages they weren't really needed. There were plenty of times where we were able to gleam information from Alice and Peter's incessant bickering.

Which leads me to my biggest sticking point. The. Romance.
I hated it.

While the premise is incredibly interesting and ambitious I felt the romance detracted from it.
Enemies to lovers/academic rivals, miscommunication, forced proximity, constantly stumbling and embracing each other ect. ect... I felt like I was dragging my heels through the seven layers of trope hell.

My favorite part was almost the end of the book when they got separated.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the Advanced Review Copy.

FIVE STARS. Standing ovation! I loved this book so much!

I am generally not a fantasy reader. I grew up loving Harry Potter, and The Night Circus is one of my all-time favorite books, but I strike out in this genre more often than not.

I’m not sure why I have trouble connecting to fantasy books - but I do know I connected so much to this one. This was a truly fantastic reading experience. Alice’s experience with (what seems to be) depression is so truthfully rendered and it meant so much to me. This book also deals with some other heavy issues with a perfect amount of grace and heart.

It is also so, so clever and often funny. I laughed out loud at what landed some people in the Pride circle of hell. My one wish is that I were a little bit smarter! I cannot even tell you the amount of time I spent googling Latin classics and mathematical paradoxes (you do NOT have to do this; you will understand the book just fine!).

I read and loved Yellowface, and I am SO excited to dive into Babel - my next read! This is the type of book that makes me so very grateful to be a reader.

a lifetime to process this. I obviously love Rebecca's writing style, even though I don’t understand most of it! 😅 My head was spinning throughout the book, so I applaud the cover artist for their perfect portrayal.

Now, let’s dive into the book itself. This concept of hell doesn’t align with my beliefs, but setting that aside, the book is really good. It’s very different from Kuang's previous works, yet somehow still similar. It discusses the experiences of women in academia, how they are treated, and how this treatment affects their mentality and self-worth. It touches on the competitive nature of people in academia and how easy it is to create divisions among them in the name of science. This environment significantly alters one's perspective on friends and peers.

Alice and Peter are prime examples of this environment. They start as friends, but slowly, very slowly, they become rivals. Their journey to hell ultimately leads them to realize the toxicity of their surroundings and the feelings they have for each other that they’ve always had. Peter is obviously sweet and caring. We only have one chapter from his POV, and I kept just oohing and aahing while reading it.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚𝕻𝖗𝖊-𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Guys I'm either dreaming or hallucinating. I actually got approved for the ARC 🤯 Thank you so much Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager🥹🫶🏻🫶🏻

3.5 stars

Unfortunately as a big fan of all of R.F. Kuang's previous books, I found this one disappointing. While the premise is very interesting, the execution never managed to grip me. In her previous works, I've been drawn in by the characters and the prose but here, the characters were flat until the climax and the prose made no impression on me. Interestingly enough, for a book about traveling through Hell, the most engaging aspects came from the backstory; I find that I would much rather read a whole book about everything that led up to this one.

While this obviously wasn't my favorite, I will always be a fan of Kuang's work and I will especially always admire her versatility and exploration--she has never done the same thing twice.

I imagine this book will be very divisive among readers. Katabasis is an absolute fever dream of a book, but what else is appropriate for a story about descending into Hell? Above all else, it needs to be praised for taking a classic story and making it so utterly original and unique. I have never read anything like it, and I know it will stay with me for a long time to come.

Alice Law and Peter Murdoch, post-grad students at Cambridge, venture to hell to retrieve the soul of their professor so his recommendation can land them esteemed jobs in their field.

I love Rebecca’s writing style, and will read anything she ever writes. I think that she creates fascinating main characters. We root for them while acknowledging they are making poor decisions, for reasons which feel right to them at the time. While reading so many of her books, I find myself frustrated with the characters but empathizing with the decisions they make under their specific circumstances. I felt the same with Alice throughout most of this book. I loved Peter’s character, and wished we had gotten more of his POV (though I understand why it was withheld).

I might feel differently about this if I had a better understanding on logic equations and paradoxes, but from my amateur point of view sometimes the ways Alice and Peter solved a problem was a little too deus ex machina. It felt like they would be trapped in an unsolvable problem but then out of nowhere they would remember a certain paradox that would save them. It’s possible that I missed the greater point on this entirely (and I think it could have worked perfectly once or even twice), but as I was reading I kept thinking that sometimes it felt a little too convenient.

I’ll admit that at times, I did get a little lost in the details of the logic equations and philosophy. Sometimes it took me out of the story and I found myself wishing for more between the characters or more action.

I loved the process of Alice and Peter journeying through the different courts of Hell. While I ultimately felt like there was some untapped potential there that was never fully realized, overall their dynamic together was interesting and enjoyable and I wish we had gotten an epilogue showing them afterwards.

Lastly, I enjoyed the humor in this book. My personal favorite part was at the very end when Alice looked directly at the King of Hell and asked for a refund because they’d had a very bad time of it, which felt like a very on brand thing for her to do. Overall I enjoyed this! The best parts of it felt like a blend of elements from Ninth House and Babel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the ARC!

Katabasis was easily one of my most anticipated reads in years—and I hate to say it, but it left me completely cold. I went in expecting something bold and brilliant, a descent into hell both literal and emotional. What I got instead felt more like wading through a 400-page academic thesis thinly veiled as a novel.

I don’t mind an intellectual read—I like philosophy, I enjoy literature, and I’m not afraid of dense material. But Katabasis doesn’t weave its ideas into the story; it explains them to you. At length. Over and over. The entire book is exposition-heavy to the point that it almost forgets it’s supposed to be telling a story. Every critical moment is buried under info-dumps, whether it’s world-building, character backstory, or even dialogue. It reads more like a lecture than a narrative.

The characters—Alice and Peter—are frustratingly flat for how much time we spend with them. You don’t really get them until far too late, and by then, it’s hard to care. Alice is yet another “tragic Asian academic girl” archetype who spends the book chasing approval, and Peter is the kind of golden boy character that’s supposed to be layered but ends up just… smug and uninteresting. Their dynamic is cold, clinical, and emotionally disconnected, which only makes the long, draggy “quest” narrative even more painful to get through.

And while Katabasis clearly has a lot on its mind—academia, misogyny, philosophical paradoxes—it doesn’t seem interested in doing anything new with those ideas. There’s no thematic payoff, no emotional resolution, and no sense that the story has anything more to say than “look how smart I am.” The whole thing feels like a flex that never lands, which would be easier to forgive if it were at least entertaining. But it’s not. It’s dry. And worse, it’s boring.

I’ve admired Kuang’s work before—Babel was addictive and compelling, and Yellowface was messy but hard to put down. But Katabasis feels like her weakest effort by far: all theory, no heart. I wanted to love it. Instead, I just wanted it to be over.

Every time I clock in to read an R.F. Kuang novel I have the same thought: Maybe I should return to get my doctorate. As I’m reading, however, I’m all at once reminded of the Horrors that exist within academia. Then I read a little more and think: Maybe I should go back! Repeat until I’ve finished the book. Katabasis is such a fascinating read, not just for its contents but for R.F. Kuang’s unerring ability to blend fiction and her obvious meticulous research of the concepts she includes in her books. The way her mind works is just incredible. She always circumvents the narrative you expect from reading the synopsis of her books. I found Alice to be a fascinating narrator, and I kept thinking about what a room with Alice, Robin, June, and Rin would look like. I absolutely would watch from a very far distance. This book was beautiful, harrowing, heart-wrenching, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time to come. Shout out to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for the eARC!

First, I want to give an enormous thank you to Netgalley and Harper Voyager for this free eARC in exchange for my honest review. Katabasis was my most anticipated book of 2025 and I am so grateful to get to read it early and for free!

Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang, follows two young graduate students who dive into hell to save their professor’s soul. It’s kind of like a dark academia fantasy meets Alice in Wonderland. If you have seen the author’s quote about this also having an enemies-to-lovers romance, that is true, but the story is not heavily focused on the romance and there is zero spice.

Alice and Peter are the two main characters, and they are the only characters we really know anything about in the story. I like them both and found them both relatable in their own ways; Peter is just a sweet cinnamon roll. The one chapter we got to hear about Peter’s backstory really helped solidify his character. However by the end of the book we really don’t know anything about Alice’s background before she came to Cambridge, and I think she’s a little weaker than she could be because of that. When there are only two main characters and maybe, if you want to count them, two side characters, I think the MC character development should be bursting at the seams with detail, but that didn’t happen here. Alice and Peter’s relationship itself I did find really cute and had my heart fluttering.

As with Babel, this book will have reviewers arguing over its intellectual and even pretentious nature. While Babel was focused on the study and history of language, the magic system of Katabasis is based on classical philosophy and logic. The entire book is filled with academic references and explanations of logical paradoxes- I personally found these interesting, but also understandably they will bore many readers to tears.

There’s a part of the book (the entire time in Dis) that just became too theoretical and complex for me to grasp. Those chapters were the weakest in my opinion. But overall, I did feel a little like I’m too dumb for this book, and it was hard for me to piece together what Kuang’s main messages were.

The ending was great. I still have to say I will read anything Kuang puts out at this point.

"Alice Law, you naughty girl. You're trying to go to Hell."

A dark academic fantasy, with Alice traveling into hell with her academic rival to save her professor, that has a unique magic system and cerebral themes woven around and through the story using philosophy, mythology, math, and religion to create an enthralling world and adventure.

Every part of this book lived up to it's promises and more. If I could give this book every star, I would. My favorite Kuang book yet.

Katabasis is a book that I wish I hadn't known anything about it when I started it. Knowing it was about a dissent into hell made me have expectations that I feel like weren't fully realized. The premise was fascinating. Katabasis has all the scholarly notes that I usually expect from Kuang - the book is deeply immeshed in the various stories and descriptions of hell across time, literature and philosophy. Alice was a bit hard to take at times, particularly as a fellow woman in academia. I felt like her redemption wasn't so much a journey as it felt more like a switch. However, the last 15% of the book really gave me what I had been hoping for throughout; I honestly really enjoyed the ending and it saved the book a bit for me. I know folks will love this one, and I think it would have delivered more for me if I had gone into completely blind without expectations.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and HarperVoyager for the advanced copy, I am honored.

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

3.75. Thank you to Harper Voyager and NetGalley! Although I really enjoyed the plot and the descriptive writing style, I found myself skimming through pages just to get to the dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, I fully appreciate the world building, but I didn’t feel connected to the characters enough to fully immerse myself into their internal monologue. Overall a solid intellectual, yet fantastical analysis of hell, with a lovely subplot between the main characters.