A review by ezrasupremacy
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

adventurous emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for this ARC!

“Katabasis” tells the story of Alice Law, a graduate student of analytic magick at Cambridge University. When her professor, Jacob Grimes, dies in a brutal accident, possibly caused by Alice herself, she makes the decision to go to hell to retrieve his soul. She is unexpectedly joined by her academic rival, Peter Murdoch. We follow the both of them as they journey through hell, but things aren’t the way they expected – will they succeed nonetheless?

This book is on everyone’s list of most anticipated reads of 2025, and it more than deserves its spot there. Kuang has, once again, crafted a masterpiece. Yes, this book is smart and shares a lot of information, but it is also so much more fun and entertaining than I was expecting after Babel, which felt a lot heavier. 

Knowing book spaces this book will probably end up on “dark academia” lists, and I think it deserves its spot there more than some others commonly given that label. Because this book actually cares about academia and what academic spaces are actually like for many people. It discusses issues such as racism and misogyny as well as ableism, and how these affect academics. This is a very important conversation to have, and Kuang approaches it with compassion and realism in equal measures. Her characters don’t have to be perfect people and have their own biases, which we see them work through over the course of their journey. 

But the heavy stuff aside, this book is just really fun. I’m not someone to laugh particularly much while reading, but this one got a lot more chuckles out of me than I had expected. I’ve also seen it referred to as slow paced and I wouldn’t agree with that assessment. To me the plot flowed quite well and at a more than reasonable pace, though I may have just felt that time was passing quickly since I had such a good time reading this one. 

The most pressing question you probably have if you are active in book spaces on social media is, do I really need to read all of these books people have been mentioning in relation to this book? Here’s the answer from someone who hasn’t read any of them: No, you do not, but it also couldn’t hurt! It is definitely true that a lot of different texts, writers and concepts are mentioned in this book that the average Joe likely won’t be super familiar with, but don’t let that stop you from reading this one. Everything is explained in a way that is not disruptive, and allows those of us who are less well-read to understand the book without any issues. But this novel also does another great thing – it makes you want to read all of the works mentioned! I definitely plan on rereading this book some time next year, after I’ve read some more of the “recommended reading” for this one. 

TLDR; this book is accessible whether you’ve read the works mentioned within (e.g. Dante’s inferno) or not, but reading them probably makes the experience even better, which is a great motivation to actually give works you might not have checked out otherwise a chance. 

I highly recommend reading this one, especially if you are working in or plan on working in academia. Katabasis is equal measures fun and informative, and in my opinion it’s an improvement to the already phenomenal Babel.