Katabasis

Katabasis Book Review by R.F. Kuang

Let me walk you through this chaos. Katabasis begins with Alice, a brilliant, prickly grad student who is absolutely not in love with her professor—except she totally is—finding out that he is dead and that she is responsible.

But fear not, because in Kuang’s universe, death is mostly just an inconvenient administrative error.

Alice, devastated and furious and unresolved about… well, everything, decides she’s going to march herself straight into the underworld to bring Professor Grimes back.

This is not metaphorical. She literally packs her bags, reluctantly agrees to bring her nemesis and yet not nemesis, Peter, with her, and strolls through the gates of hell like she’s going to office hours.

Now, hell itself is structured around seven courts, and you’d think: “Oh! Perfect! A fun little quest! A clear trajectory! Each court reveals something about Alice and Peter and their bond and trauma and—”

Well. No.

Instead, Alice and Peter wander into these courts, poke around a bit, and then at one point Alice literally gets uncomfortable and just… leaves. Through a side exit. Like this is a mall and she’s realized the music is too loud in Sephora. The courts promise structure, challenge, escalating stakes—but in practice function more like optional museum exhibits.

Meanwhile, Peter has his own reasons for going into hell. Their dynamic is intercut with flashbacks to their time at the university with Professor Grimes, a man so pompous and self-important that he practically leaks red flags.

Alice and Peter’s mutual obsession with him—and with each other—spirals into this intense, toxic, academic pressure cooker. It’s compelling, unsettling, and by far the most gripping part of the book.

Eventually Alice does confront Grimes, but not in the explosive, cathartic, “drag him by his tenure and choke him with symbolic justice” way the entire narrative seemed to promise.

No, she simply looks at him and realizes he’s a pathetic, fragile man unworthy of the myth she built around him. Philosophically satisfying? Sure. Climactically satisfying? Absolutely not.

The book ends on a note of transformation, release, and “we actually didn’t need hell for this but okay!”

Oh, R.F. Kuang. How the mighty have fallen. Just kidding, but she definitely flew a little too close to the sun for this one. This book had SO much potential. Dark academia? Sign me up. Romance? Hand it over. A trip to hell?? SAY LESS. And yet somehow all that promise turned into a book that felt like it was 90% vibes, 10% plot, and 100% “wait… what?”

First of all: Kuang’s version of hell had moments, but overall? It fell completely flat as a setting. I wanted a linear descent into the seven courts, each one building tension and revealing something new. Instead, the courts felt optional as I said before. 

And Peter dying early? A terrible decision. It watered down the book and made the entire middle section drag. I KNEW he was coming back—everyone knew, their ancestors knew—and waiting 100 pages for his reappearance was torture.

If you’re going to kill a character, at least commit to it or make it emotionally devastating. This was neither.

I also desperately wanted a bigger, more dramatic confrontation between Alice and Professor Grimes. I fully understand that Alice’s disinterest is the point—she sees him for the irrelevant little man he is—but STILL.

THIS WAS SET UP AS THE POINT OF THE BOOK. GIVE ME SOMETHING. A monologue, a metaphorical slap, a symbolic academic takedown—anything.

Honestly? The best parts were the flashbacks at the university. Watching Alice and Peter navigate their toxic, competitive, emotionally warped relationships—with each other and with Grimes—was infinitely more compelling than the entire descent into hell.

I would have absolutely read a purely dark academia novel with no hell whatsoever. Just emotional repression, academic obsession, and unhinged tension.

One more thing people keep bringing up: the philosophy, literary references, and theological tangents. Goodreads is sobbing that it “reads like a textbook.” Personally? I didn’t hate this. As someone well-versed in a lot of the texts she alluded to, I actually really enjoyed the scholastic flavor. But I’m aware that’s a hot take.

Recommendation: it was fun. But it needed editing, tightening, and a hell storyline that wasn’t… hellish. Hahah, but really, the hell storyline was more forgettable than daring. I liked it, but she left so much potential at the gates of Hades.

Score: 6/10