I'm so conflicted!! I wanted this to be my favorite book of the year but it's just not, and I'm so sad about that.

Let's start off with the things I liked. I loved the character development, the concept, and the depiction of hell. The characters were the strongest element of this one IMO - I loved that we got to know them slowly as the book progressed. Kuang is a master of writing morally grey characters that you still want to root for, and I think both Alice and Peter are great examples of that. The concept of this story was also super fun! A romp through hell! What could go wrong! I love how she combined so many cultural mythologies to create this version of hell, it was really interesting.

Now for the things that frustrated me. GIRL. We get it. Academia is rough. This book hit us over the head with how bad academia is - how unfair, racist, and sexist that world can be. I understood the first time and it just kept coming. It was a little much. And the magic system? Confusing and full of confusion and questions that never got answered. If you're reading this for the vibes you'll love it, but for a fleshed out magic system you've come to the wrong place. I also wanted more from the romance! There was a lot of telling and very little showing which made it hard to believe for me.

Overall a fun story but not Kuang's best effort. I'm disappointed but will always keep reading her books!

3.5 stars rounded up

I just finished Katabasis by R.F. Kuang last night, and holy cow, this book is just incredible. I knew it was going to be amazing, but honestly, it still managed to exceed every expectation I had for it.

If you haven't heard about this book, first of all, where have you been?! Second of all, let's dive into what it's about. Basically, we follow two grad students who study magic at Cambridge. They've decided they need to go into hell because their advisor died, and they need to bring him back so they can graduate. But that's truly just the very first part of the journey.

So, they are indeed going through hell, and the book talks about all these different beliefs of what the afterlife is. You'll find references to Virgil and Dante, Chinese interpretations, Greek mythology – all sorts of fascinating stuff. It's so interesting, and it's discussed through a really academic, philosophical lens, which I found so fun. But then, we also have our characters dealing with their own internal struggles, which adds another layer of depth.

It's just so amazing; I enjoyed it so much. Also, for all my Lord of the Rings fans out there, there are definitely a couple of Easter eggs! I didn't realize R.F. Kuang was such a fan of Lord of the Rings, which, like, duh, I probably should have, because how are you going to be a fantasy writer without loving Lord of the Rings? But seriously, I super enjoyed it.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the physical copy of this book; it's going to be so good. If Katabasis isn't on your TBR, you absolutely need to add it immediately. Pre-order it, because it is so, so, so worth it. I'm giving this a 20 out of 10 – highly, highly recommend!

On the whole I enjoyed this book and I think the story goes to interesting places, but I do think it relies far too heavily on convenience and (literal) deus ex machina style saves to advance the plot. Any time Alice and Peter get into a seemingly impossible position, something or someone just happens to cruise by to rescue them or otherwise move the story along. It feels like the author wanted to tell a story with a particular vibe and a few specific beats, but the process of getting the characters from A to B was sort of an afterthought.

The Scholomance series gave fantasy writers permission to lean hard into over-exposition in "magical academia" type stories, which means we get a lot of over-indulgent background information in this book. I didn't mind it but it's going to grate on a lot of people. "Wittgenstein was a magician actually, and here's how his theories of logical form influence analytical magic" is going to appeal to a small subset of readers and halt the momentum of a great deal more. Kuang isn't Susanna Clarke; this isn't an immersive or spellbinding story of magical academia. It's often a fun time, and I like the version of Hell presented here, but the book itself is a little overworked and cerebral in a way it doesn't earn through story.

RF Kuang has done it again- dark academia mystery. She is a genius- do I think your PHD program is equivalent to hell? Close. RF Kuang does the research necessary to go deep in her books

This book was quite good. However, I feel a though it could have been shorter if quite a bit of the wordy exposition was excluded from the book. It kind of slogged down the plot at times, especially in the midst of exciting action. The characters were great and i would have loved to see just a touch more "romance" as that is a marketing device being used to promote this title as far as I can tell. Kuang's description remains immersive and on point as usual from her other writings.

LOVE THIS. love RF Kuang. Babel is still my favorite from her, but I super enjoyed Katabasis. I love a hero's journey where the hero kind of sucks a little. SO GOOD. Alice is such a beautifully flawed character. As with Peter, he was so fun. I really appreciated the window into his character as well, because it helped explain him in a way that made him more real. Plus heightened stress of being trapped in hell with a gastrointestinal disorder!! extra scary!

Kuang is so much smarter than me so some of the magic system was lost on me in terms of how it worked, but the general gist of it was really fascinating to me. I found this to be so utterly HUMAN. just such a joy to read.

I thought the premise of this book was great so I decided to give it a try. Two post grad students from a magical school descending into the bowels of hell. What could be better than that? What I loved were all the references to Dante and other works, whether I read them or not, and also getting into the minds of graduate students and what they were going through in pursuit of knowledge and research. That the need to complete their doctorate work was so great the idea of entering hell to find their dead professor made perfect sense. What I didn't like, though, was the way Alice was portrayed. Here was one of the best minds in the world of magic and academia, getting her degree at Cambridge, and she's forever doubting herself and beating herself up. Yes, everyone has doubts, that's a way of life. But until it really mattered, she was a blubbering mess. Why do authors always do that to women? I found myself skimming the part when Alice was traveling alone, all that internal dialog got tedious for me. In the end I only liked it, didn't love it. But I think this could be a great companion piece for people who like Dante, and a welcome addition to HS English classrooms.

Thank you so much to Harper Voyager for the ARC.

Let me start by saying: I’m a longtime fan of R.F. Kuang. I’ve read everything she’s written: The Poppy War trilogy, Babel (a personal all-time favorite), and more. Every book until now has been an easy five stars. So it pains me to say this, but Katabasis just didn’t work for me.

On paper, it had everything I wanted: a dark academic fantasy about postgraduate magicians descending into the eight courts of Hell to rescue a missing professor. The atmosphere? Impeccable. The opening scenes with chalk-drawn pentagrams, relentless rain, hellish architecture, set the stage for something eerie and immersive. I was ready.

And then the fog rolled in. Not in the setting, but in the prose. Kuang’s writing, while often beautiful, felt weighed down by an avalanche of dense description and endless exposition. Every few pages, the plot would stall to make room for a lecture on Schrödinger’s cat, or a tangent about obscure philosophical theory. It was like being handed a syllabus instead of a novel.

The characters didn’t help much. Alice Law, our protagonist, had so much potential, but she spent much of the first half buried under Peter Murdoch’s brooding backstory. Peter himself felt distant and emotionally opaque, more academic mouthpiece than real person. Their enemies-to-lovers arc had glimmers of tension but often felt out of sync with the pacing and stakes.

That said, the second half of the book picks up. Alice finally steps into her own, and there are some genuinely shocking twists that reminded me of Kuang’s signature narrative boldness. The worldbuilding is deeply imaginative, and the philosophical underpinnings while overwhelming at times do raise thought-provoking questions.

Ultimately, though, Katabasis felt more like a vehicle for Kuang to showcase her intellect than to tell a compelling story. Where Babel balanced academic depth with emotional resonance and narrative drive, Katabasis too often reads like a textbook with plot intermissions.

I still admire Kuang’s ambition. Few authors aim this high, and fewer still do so with her level of technical skill. But this one tested my patience. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy dense, cerebral fantasy and don’t mind hitting the brakes for the sake of a philosophical deep dive, but be warned, you’ll need a strong tolerance for info-dumps and a lot of stamina.

A fascinating but frustrating read.

This took me forever to get into, but once I was in I enjoyed the second half a lot more. This was good, and of course, very clearly well-thought out and researched, but felt too long for me, and I don't often love the surrealist style that a lot of this was written in.

I really enjoyed this! Hell as a University fuck yeah. Alice's character growth was 10/10, and I loved Peter and Elspeth. This was very much just a fantasy going-on-a-quest book which is generally my favorite kind of fantasy. I didn't think this was too heavy-hitting or lifechanging, but as usual, I love Kuang's prose and writing style. If I had to match this book with a song, it would be First Light by Hozier.

Rated based on the first 52%.
Currently moved back to want to read, as my ARC copy expired from Net Galley.
Thoughts so far? Starts off pretty well and slogs in the middle. The premise is very cool and Kuang has clearly done her research on what many cultures believe regarding the afterlife.
But- she does clearly enjoy showing off what she knows, and since the vast majority of us aren't going to know what this philosopher wrote, or what theory this is, she has to explain it to us and the story can come to a screeching halt. There was one point where I legitimately skipped pages because things were getting repetitive.
Will I finish? Probably.

Katabasis was everything I expected and wanted from Kuang. It reminded me of Babel and also partially of Ninth House/Hell Bent. Alice Law is a hot mess and I love her, she's just trying. Trying to do grad school well, trying to be the best student, trying to meet the demands and expectations of those around her, trying to keep her advisor proud of her, but all the trying is eating at her and I don't think she knows who she is by the time she finds herself in hell. Peter's character was a great addition to Alice, they didn't necessarily balance each other out but they did give and take a lot, and while Peter is never really seen as a main character, he is absolutely necessary to Alice's journey. Her time in hell is almost a forced self-discovery journey through all her faults and assumptions and really makes her confront the theory of life as she witnesses what death is. I love Kuang's writing, how it is so academic while being palatable to those outside of academia and I will forever keep reading her novels.

I love RF Kuang, her writing is phenomenal. I think Katabasis was an intelligent critique about academia and the struggles to succeed in a field that requires you to give a lot of yourself to your work. I think the reason I don't want to give this book 5 stars is that a lot of the academic or philosophical references were given to make our characters come off as intelligent (successful), but as a result, this isolated me as a reader. Undoubtedly, her writing is great, but this felt incredibly long (like it took me literal months to read and I usually finish books within a week or two) and it felt like I didn't naturally want to keep picking this book back up. I felt for Alice and ended up rooting for her as she got to the last circle of Hell, but the ending felt lackluster and not rewarding enough to slog through 550 pages.

I’ve read her other books and really wanted to like this, but it just had too many references I didn’t understand and it felt too highbrow. Disappointed because this was a highly anticipated release this year.

I felt the novel started off strong with an engaging premise and specific quest ahead, but the story was soon slowed down by heavy exposition. I enjoyed the flashback scenes that revealed more about Alice and Peter than I did the scenes in hell. Considering the location and quest of the story, most of the bits in hell were rather boring. You can tell how much RFK invested in, and enjoyed, the research for this, but the execution of a dark academia adventure novel was lacking the adventure, stakes, and emotion. I think fans of RFK will be divided with this one.

Amazing read. I loved the characters and the story, would definitely be recommending this to patrons.

I always feel a bit stupid reviewing Kuang's books. She and I are not a good match at all (I tried Babel, couldn't get through it. Same with Yellowface, and now this). But while she may not be for me, I do understand how many readers will enjoy traveling with Peter and Alice to the depths of hell. As for what will happen once they reach it, remains to be seen.

We will still be adding this to our collection.

The title and premise should have been a good warning that this would be a serious book, but having read and loved Yellowface and found the satire in that really amusing (and not having read any of Kuang’s other books) I was hoping this was going to be a little funnier. The first half was fun but things turned darker in the second half. The satire was biting and perspective on academia, and especially women in academia, was excoriating and made me glad I never went that route.

I love RF Kuang's cleverness and how smart she is does seem to have been an inspiration here. As a novel, Katabasis really felt like Kuang decided to weave herself into a Hell fanfiction, inspired by a lot of narratives of the afterlife. It read a bit YA, very focused on a small group of people and not enough fleshing out of the rest of everything. As with Babel, parts of this read like a textbook, which is an aspect I loved. But, I would also have loved to see the acknowledgement of where the inspiration came from in the book, because it felt so much like a textbook. I think it's more fun when you know where exactly the reference comes from and which parts are original creations. All of this being said... I had fun reading this and did very much enjoy the journey despite the flaws I couldn't help but see because I do like Kuang's way of thinking and humor.

DNF. I liked "Babel" and was intrigued by Kuang's return to dark academia but this was a slog and a half. Self-indulgent and silly, but will no doubt be a darling of book social media.