It started with hell but it should have stayed there

Book review: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Published: August 26, 2025 by HarperVoyager

Buy this book at: Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Bookshop.org

Synopsis:

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.

Rating:

Review:

This book has been the belle of the 2025 Literary Ball. I have heard about it everywhere and everyone on this green earth seemed to love it. Except for me. I wanted to love it. It sounds exactly like the kind of books I have loved in the past. Unfortunately, I found it preachy and pretentious.

It was very clear from the first chapter that this was a self-insert. Alice is the author and her partner is Peter. This was abundantly clear in every single sentence. I was okay with that at the beginning because both of them were very compelling characters. And they were presented with a very compelling problem with very interesting solutions. I loved the magic system that was created in this book. It was gritty and academic all at the same time. The book nerd in me was in heaven even as our main characters were descending into hell to find their professor’s soul! The world created here is spectacular and so I persevered as long as I could with the other things wrong with the book. Two academics navigate the nine levels of hell in search of their professor after his accidental demise, all so that they don’t have to repeat their work for a new professor.

Unfortunately the biggest weakness this book had was the philosophizing. So many long rantings on philosophical topics that never have a conclusion. The entire book was full of navel gazing instead of a gritty and dangerous adventure. I also disliked the long (and I mean really long) flashbacks so that the characters would have the slightest amount of depth or personality. After awhile I found it hard to keep track of flashbacks versus current events.

After awhile, I also couldn’t figure out why we wanted the professor’s soul back so badly? He was an awful human. He had literally no redeeming qualities and was abusive, cruel and criminal to everyone who crossed his path. Frankly, I was disappointed that he died in an accident when someone clearly just should have ended his miserable existence for the sake of women everywhere. I am also weary of female academic characters who seem obliged to sneer at the concept of feminism until something horrible happens to them. It gives vibes of “as long as bad things happen to other people then I don’t care, but God forbid they happen to me!” It’s gross and I dislike it. And since Alice is an author self-insert this makes me side eye the author here as well. Were you that kind of academic woman? Ew.

In the end, I couldn’t even finish this book because the book itself and all of its characters made me feel sick to my stomach and gave me “the ick.”