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A review by spookcy
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
funny
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
2.5/5 ⭐️ (closer to 2 but rounding up)
I was so excited to read this since I loved The Poppy War trilogy and Babel, but I’m just kinda confused and disappointed by Katabasis ☹️. There are moments that were good but mostly it’s just a slow, emotionally flat book that felt strangely poorly written for an R. F. Kuang novel?
~ spoilers from now on ~
Pros:
- Elspeth was the best character. From the get-go she was interesting and I was intrigued by her. Despite being dead she was basically the only character that felt alive and real, but she’s barely in the story.
- The last ~25% of the book was good! I didn’t love the cliche ending but the last few chapters leading up to it was interesting. The pace picked up and the main characters were separated so that surely helped.
- I didn’t mind the logic/mathematics/philosophy content. I see a lot of reviews saying that it felt like a textbook, was too complicated to read without googling, or felt like RFK was trying to show how smart she was by info-dumping facts. I don’t know a lot about the logic/math/philosophy she talked about but I thought it was fun to learn about (like how in Babel the focus was on etymology).
- The first 2 “floors” of Hell were interesting. They were creative and unique and it made me excited to see how the rest of Hell would be portrayed… and she stopped with that concept and the rest of Hell was just rocks and sand :’)
Cons:
- Incoherent structure!! The format it was written in didn’t work for me. It was basically 1 page interesting dialogue, 10 pages background info, 2 pages progressing story, 1 chapter of background info, etc. It made me want to put the book down cause I didn’t wanna read the character’s background anymore. Also, I think it would’ve been better if it was written in chronological order.
- Hell was somehow boring? There’s so much potential and creativity in describing what Hell might look like and I could never visualize it because the description was always just “rocks, sand, bones, black river”. That’s it.
- Characters lacked chemistry. There was supposed to be romance in this book between the main characters but there basically was nothing until the very, very end. I expected it to be hinted at (like Ramy & Robin in Babel) but there was nothing?
- I disliked Alice the entire time, Peter was okay (his background info chapter was actually good, having a character with Crohn’s isn’t common so it was cool to see), Grimes was boring & absent, everyone else I forget.
- Hell is supposed to be super, super old with souls trapped there for eons. Yet, the only people Alice & Peter meet are people from their era, at their university? I feel like there were so many missed opportunities with that.
- They start off needing food, water and rest and then halfway through that gets thrown out the window?
If this was supposed to have a deeper meaning about academics being hell and misogyny in academics, I didn’t really get it :/ Even if I just view it as a goofy love story it also feels like it falls short.
And John Gradus?? Who was that?? Was that something obvious and I missed it cause nobody talks about him in reviews?? I liked him!
I was so excited to read this since I loved The Poppy War trilogy and Babel, but I’m just kinda confused and disappointed by Katabasis ☹️. There are moments that were good but mostly it’s just a slow, emotionally flat book that felt strangely poorly written for an R. F. Kuang novel?
~ spoilers from now on ~
Pros:
- Elspeth was the best character. From the get-go she was interesting and I was intrigued by her. Despite being dead she was basically the only character that felt alive and real, but she’s barely in the story.
- The last ~25% of the book was good! I didn’t love the cliche ending but the last few chapters leading up to it was interesting. The pace picked up and the main characters were separated so that surely helped.
- I didn’t mind the logic/mathematics/philosophy content. I see a lot of reviews saying that it felt like a textbook, was too complicated to read without googling, or felt like RFK was trying to show how smart she was by info-dumping facts. I don’t know a lot about the logic/math/philosophy she talked about but I thought it was fun to learn about (like how in Babel the focus was on etymology).
- The first 2 “floors” of Hell were interesting. They were creative and unique and it made me excited to see how the rest of Hell would be portrayed… and she stopped with that concept and the rest of Hell was just rocks and sand :’)
Cons:
- Incoherent structure!! The format it was written in didn’t work for me. It was basically 1 page interesting dialogue, 10 pages background info, 2 pages progressing story, 1 chapter of background info, etc. It made me want to put the book down cause I didn’t wanna read the character’s background anymore. Also, I think it would’ve been better if it was written in chronological order.
- Hell was somehow boring? There’s so much potential and creativity in describing what Hell might look like and I could never visualize it because the description was always just “rocks, sand, bones, black river”. That’s it.
- Characters lacked chemistry. There was supposed to be romance in this book between the main characters but there basically was nothing until the very, very end. I expected it to be hinted at (like Ramy & Robin in Babel) but there was nothing?
- I disliked Alice the entire time, Peter was okay (his background info chapter was actually good, having a character with Crohn’s isn’t common so it was cool to see), Grimes was boring & absent, everyone else I forget.
- Hell is supposed to be super, super old with souls trapped there for eons. Yet, the only people Alice & Peter meet are people from their era, at their university? I feel like there were so many missed opportunities with that.
- They start off needing food, water and rest and then halfway through that gets thrown out the window?
If this was supposed to have a deeper meaning about academics being hell and misogyny in academics, I didn’t really get it :/ Even if I just view it as a goofy love story it also feels like it falls short.
And John Gradus?? Who was that?? Was that something obvious and I missed it cause nobody talks about him in reviews?? I liked him!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death