Book Club September Review: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

I seem to be one of the few people who honestly did not know much about Katabasis or R.F. Kuang before I chose this for September's book club pick. As her most anticipated read of 2025, CY could barely contain her excitement in the run-up to its launch in August. So of course she attended the Waterstones book launch event, and the overwhelming response to the TikTok video she posted got me swept up in the online hype.

Katabasis is a dark academia about Alice Law, a Phd student in magic who loses her guidance counsellor in an unfortunate accident. So naturally Alice travels to the 12 circles of hell to retrieve his soul, all in the name of getting a recommendation letter. Alice encounters both physical and mental challenges along her journey through hell, not the least of which was her rival Peter following her there.

Our Rating

⭑⭑⭑½

After the build up to this book's release, to say I had big expectations would be an understatement. R.F. Kuang was all-but touted as a genius of modern literature and I have to say my first feeling upon reading it was that it had been a long time since I had read something written by someone so talented at weaving words. Whilst that was truly refreshing, it baffled me why so many in the TikTok community insisted that you needed to do research in order to understand this book. I am no literary snob (come on, I'm the girl that chose Morning Glory Milking Farm and I loved Fourth Wing as much as any Romantasy girlie), but I appreciated and understood the book just fine without firstly needing to read Dante's Inferno or reaching for the dictionary every few sentences.

Unfortunately, once the novelty of her beautiful writing wore off (which for me lasted only a few chapters), the issues with this book became glaringly obvious. I know I am going against popular opinion here, but by the halfway point I was really struggling to finish this book and battling unjustified feelings of hatred towards its author. What inspired such irrational feelings in me? Well, the insipid plot that really went nowhere, the utterly boring portrayal of the challenges faced in hell, and the paper thin characters who were completely unlikable to the point that I really didn't care whether they made it out of hell or not. So whilst we would love to give Katabasis 5* for the authors skill with words, we really can't give it more than 3.5* (and that's me being pretty generous).

***Spoiler Alert*** - We are unable to do the book justice without revealing spoilers, so please read on with caution!

Our Comments

• On Plot: As I have outlined above, the plot of this book just really did not do it for me. I never found it believable that Alice would travel to hell to save her supervisor who she so obviously hated. Once we got further into the book and she revealed that her plan to bring him back was not mercy, but instead a punishment she had concocted for him as revenge, I still didn't buy it unfortunately. I don't know if this had to do with Alice's character, the fact I'd lost interest completely by then, or that I didn't think her idea of revenge was any worse than leaving him trapped in hell, but either way her motivations just couldn't get me invested in her journey. And without being invested in the plot, there was really nothing to keep me turning the pages to find out what fate held for Alice and Peter.

• On Characters: I wanted to like the characters, I really did. Alice was intriguing at first, but I found her so insufferable and unlikeable in her narration, her actions and her motivations that I really couldn't relate to her. I liked Peter slightly more, but I didn't buy how quickly he seemed to fall in love with Alice or the lengths to which he was willing to go for her. His characterisation was superficial, and he needed more depth for me to really care. It's telling that I didn't shed a single tear when he died, and only a sliver of me wished for her to find a way to bring him back. However, CY still enjoyed being taken through Alice's journey as she found her darkness alluring and I felt that Alice's need for validation was well-portrayed.

• On Romance: Before I ever read this book I saw a lot of hype online around the 1 sleeping bag moment. I have to say, this scene was underwhelming for me to say the least, and if I hadn't heard it mentioned online it would have probably escaped my notice entirely. Perhaps that's because I didn't really buy Alice and Peter as enemies, and I bought their love story even less. Especially given their age, it felt too much like a teen romance to me: it was underdeveloped and confused proximity for intimacy. And that part where she just let him die without lifting even a finger to save him?! If I ever felt even a tiny bit invested in their romance, that completely killed any excitement about it for me.

• On World Building: This was a novel take on hell and we both enjoyed the fact that it was designed like a campus. However, we had higher expectations for how interesting a journey through hell would be. Katabasis just didn't deliver on this: the demons they faced were not scary at all (CY actually thought the bone monsters were quite cute), the challenges they had to overcome were too easily conquered, and the stakes weren't high enough. In the end the biggest challenges faced were by the characters internally, and whilst I love to see character development, it didn't feel like Kuang did justice to any version of hell with this depiction. Choosing such a well-known concept comes with pre-conceived notions and, whilst I usually like a new take on an old idea, this one just fell flat for me. I appreciate the tremendous amount of research that must have gone into this book, but it translated as Kuang simply showing off how much she knew by cramming in as many ideologies as she could, with no regard to the actual plot or relevance of these. The overall result just didn't work and the book became incredibly boring. That said, the magic system was interesting and, whilst I didn't entirely understand it's limits, it did have me intrigued as to what it could do.

• On Philosophy: It was a nice touch that the book posed quite a lot of philosophical questions that stayed with us even after we'd finished it. In particular, the idea of personhood stood out, and the critique of academia was pretty spot-on. Although I do struggle to believe that anyone could be quite as crazed about it as Alice was.

Would We Recommend It:

CY - I would recommend this to people who enjoy dark academia and beautiful prose. 

Kay - For me this book shows that good writing does not make a good book. I do think that R.F. Kuang is talented, but I just really didn't get on with this book. I wouldn't personally recommend it, but if you like exploring philosophical ideas and can overlook some pretty glaring plotholes you might enjoy it a little more than I did.

Book Club Questions:

If you have a book club or buddy read with a friend, then here are some questions you can contemplate to make your discussion a bit more interesting. And as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts or answers in the comments!

• Were there any philosophical questions that stood out to you and why?

• What did you think of the characterisation of Alice and Peter and was this relatable to you?

• What were your thoughts of the portrayal of hell and did any particular ideas stand out to you?

• Did you believe in Alice's commitment to her career and her determination to get what she wanted?