Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
Publication Date: August 26, 2025
Summary from NetGalley:
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.
ARC provided by Avon and Harper Voyager via Netgalley for an honest review.
Confession:
I have mixed feelings about this one. While I liked the characters and found their journey through hell interesting, I also found the book to be a bit on the long side and there were a lot of time when the story was dragged down by the philosophical and logic discussions between the characters. It didn’t help that a lot of the discussions went over my head either.
I did like Alice and found myself relating to her and her life quite a bit. She is very determined to succeed and needs her mentor back in order to do so. She is very smart and knows how to do research. She is also used to hardship and following the rules. But she has a lot of doubts about herself and she quite often beats herself up about that. She is kind of hard to like at the start of the book, but as her character develops you understand her better. Peter we don’t get to know as well, until about 60% in and we get his whole backstory in one chapter. It would have been nice to know some of this earlier in the story. There is a romance between the two, and I did like them together, but I just wanted a bit more from that part of the story. It would have made the ending a bit more believable.
The setting was well done. All of the different levels of hell were described so well that it was almost like you were there. I liked the many characters they met in hell and their backstories were fascinating. The pacing could have been a bit better. There were many times when it felt like the story came to a stand still, as discussions about the many different versions of hell, or logic or even math were held between the characters, but for the most part it was pretty steady. The magic system was also not explained super well, I got the basics, but it could have used a bit more explanation. I really liked the ending, I just sort of wish we got there quicker.
The thing that I really didn’t like was all of the discussions around the different accounts of hell. I have never read Dante or any of the other stories about hell, and only have a fleeting familiarity with the Greek version. Also logic and philosophy were never a strong subject for me, I almost failed the one philosophy class I took in college, so many of these discussion went over my head. These sections, while probably important to the overall story, really dragged it down for me. I think there is a small group of readers that will enjoy all of that though.
I think fans of this author will also like this one, especially if you have an interest in philosophy or logic. But if you have not read this author’s other works, you might want to start with one of those. This is a hard book to love, but I did like reading it.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 
Fab review! I always like to read this author’s book via audio!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I listened to her other books, and I think this one would probably work a bit better as an audiobook.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great review! I agree so much with your thoughts on the pacing and discussion’s that kept popping up throughout. They were far too smart for me in most cases and I didn’t really feel that they added anything to the plot at all…
LikeLiked by 1 person
😊
LikeLiked by 1 person