Katabasis Review
Book Review: Katabasis
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy
Page Count: 560
Read Date: January 2026
Score: 4.5/5 ⭐
Rank: Highly Recommended
Summary
When her thesis advisor dies in a magical accident she may have caused, Cambridge Magick doctoral candidate Alice Law must descend into Hell with her rival Peter to retrieve his soul. If she fails, she loses not only her letter of recommendation and her entire academic future, but must face the possibility that she has destroyed herself for a vocation that was never worth the cost.
Review
This was my first R.F. Kuang novel. I didn't know what to expect, but the blurb on the back of the book (along with the cover if I'm totally honest) caught my attention. Every time I went to the bookstore for weeks I'd see it and want to buy it, but I held off due to the price of the hardback. Then, one fated day in January it was on sale, so I pulled the trigger.
First of all, R.F. Kuang's prose is both succinct and beautiful. It's not flowery. It's not overly descriptive. My best description would be straight to the point, but also full of vivid imagery. Several times I would read a sentence and be struck by how powerful the prose was, due to how incredibly tight and lean her writing is. She chooses each word carefully.
The story itself is a dark academia style fantasy novel focused on two doctoral students at Cambridge school of Magick. Alice Law, the protagonist, is witty and highly intelligent, but an outsider compared to most of her classmates. She isn't the high brow type, but came from an American middle class family and had to claw her way into the program. Not only that, she has to constantly prove herself compared to her golden child classmate, Peter.
Everyone loves Peter. He seems to have the Midas touch. He seems elite and yet lovable. The type of person you want to hate, but just can't because they are so nice... until they aren't.
Alice struggles through the novel with feelings about Peter and about her advisor, both of whom she has very complex relationships with. It will certainly make you consider how we can both love and hate someone so passionately at the same time.
The first page tells you what the story will be about. Beautifully done from a story craft perspective. Alice is traveling into Hell to rescue her advisor from whatever circle of Hell he happens to be in when she finds him. Katabasis harkens to Dante's Inferno and several other literary works throughout the novel, which was a fun touch.
R.F. Kuang does character development well. Over the course of the story you see multiple character arcs and get to observe them change (some for the better, some for the worse). I enjoyed this aspect of the story quite a lot. I especially enjoyed one or two of the side characters you meet in Hell.
Though it's over 500 pages long, it's a fairly fast read. There were parts towards the 75% mark that felt a little slow to me. However, I was able to push through and finish the book. The ending was good and she wrapped up most of the promises she made early on in a satisfactory manner.
All in all, if you're into dark academia vibes, it's worth a read. I can't put it in the must read camp, but it's certainly in my highly recommended list. I'll certainly be picking up her other works in the future.