Reviews - Katabasis | The StoryGraph

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

570 reviews for:

Katabasis

R.F. Kuang

4.01 AVERAGE

readabilitea's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

ngrosenzweig's review against another edition

Beyond over written - goes on and on and on and on. Found myself turning pages and skimming in a hopeless attempt to get the story to move along. In so many ways it is a tired plot, and though it had promise, I couldn’t bear to wait for something to happen any longer.

baeyle's review against another edition

Might go back to this if I can get an audio but I’m just bored now. Halfway through and they’ve only been through 2 out of 8 courts of hell (which they just breezed through too easily). RF Kuang can only write unlikable female characters but the sad thing is they are clearly based on herself and not meant to be unlikable…

annatmreads's review against another edition

3.5

medium-paced

caclark21's review against another edition

4.0

Thank you to Harper Voyager for the early copy of Katabasis! All opinions below are my own.

I have mixed feelings on this one. I did like it but I didn’t love it. It also felt somewhat disjointed, like 500+ pages of ambling through the circles/levels of hell without a definitive arc. Though I do think this was an interesting introspection of our main character, Alice’s, views on academia and life as she grappled through her drive and what made life worth it. This feels like more of a very deep character study.

I think I maybe went in expecting my next favorite novel - especially as someone who has multiple copies of and has read Dante’s Inferno multiple times in the original language. I thought we might get more of that exploration with everyone that Alice would encounter along the way but we got a slightly limited cast of characters.

I do like how Alice and Peter were existing together, the romance does make sense but it’s not heavy on the romance. It seems to be something they both needed to realize and understand. The romance felt very RF Kuang in it being a growth device and exploration of values rather than a real romance in the traditional sense. I like that we slowly learn more about both of them and the ways that they perceived one another - their ways of seeing things that the other couldn’t see about themselves but also the ways that they had misunderstood each other and working through that.

I liked this magical system in place, it was an interesting exploration of language. Through both Katabasis and Babel you can see how deep of an understanding and love of language that RF Kuang has. You can also see in this one as well what a deep grasp of literature that Kuang has in general. I did enjoy the usage of classical philosophy and bending it to this concept of magic that was created for the book. Kuang is undeniably extraordinarily intelligent which you can see throughout the novel.

What’s holding me back from really loving this is I don’t think there was as much exploration into this world of Hell. I wanted more - there was close to 200 pages of our characters not encountering a single other soul along the way, which: how? How would they not come across anyone in this circles of Hell? I get that this gave the characters the space to work through their own issues and to better understand themselves but, it felt lacking to me. With all of the titles I know came into Katabasis, I think I just wanted more of those lush worlds. Granted, the characters we do meet along the way are interesting and I liked Kuang’s version of the circles but I just wanted more which feels a little crazy to say about a 500+ page book.

I wouldn’t go in expecting the same level of discourse and commentary as in Babel. I am curious how I’ll feel as I sit with this one more and also after hearing from and talking with friends about their thoughts!

apairofducks's review against another edition

4.0

The beginning of this book is so strong that I’m a bit baffled by how much it deflates. Still, I enjoyed myself— just not as much as I expected from an RF Kuang book.