Hello, fellow bookworms! Welcome, or Welcome back! My name is Amanda, and this is where I share spoiler-free book reviews and other bookish things. Thanks for visiting. Join the conversation and share your thoughts. Today’s post is about Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. The reviews of this book are very mixed. Some people are loving it, some aren’t, and I think it has to do with expectation. I’m going to explain what this book is about without spoilers and help you figure out if it’s something you’ll enjoy. Let’s get Smitten for Fiction!

About The Book 📚

Title: Katabasis

Series: N/A

Author: R. F. Kuang

Publication Date: Aug 26, 2025

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Genre: Fantasy (Dark Academia), Horror, Literary, Satire

Pages: 560

Setting: Cambridge University, England

Click Here for Content Warnings (may contain spoilers)

Three Words That Describe This Book: sacrifice, death, magic

About The Author

“Rebecca F. Kuang is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, Yellowface, and Katabasis (forthcoming). Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Book Awards. She was named to the 2023 Time100 Next list and the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2024. A Marshall Scholar, she has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford. She is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale, where she researches Sinophone literature and Asian American literature.” https://www.rfkuang.com/about

Dark Academia

› Before we get into my review for Katabasis, let’s discuss Dark Academia. What is it exactly? I think social media has played a role in changing what people think Dark Academia is about – and then they go into certain books with the wrong expectations. Dark Academia is about darkness, both literally and metaphorically. It has themes concerning the darker side of human nature. It features older institutional settings such as universities. Main characters are often obsessed with academics. There is danger, murder, and fantasy (particularly supernatural elements).

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is often thought of as the staple for Dark Academia (which I haven’t read yet! I know…horrible. I must read that soon). Kuang’s Babel is also Dark Academia – and this is one of the reasons why I recommend Katabasis to people who loved Babel. From watching and reading other reviews, there is a trend of people who loved Yellowface and/or The Poppy Wars but disliked Katabasis.

Dark Academia is also academic. It literally says that right in the name. And yet I see some readers complaining that Katabasis is “too academic”. There are quotes and references to Orpheus, Dante, Socrates, Huemer, Immanuel Kant, Nietzsche, and more. BUT you don’t need to know all about those works to understand Katabasis. Sure, it can be helpful, but they aren’t necessary for a reader to follow the story. Yes, the magic system is complicated; however, you don’t need to fully understand how all of that works to appreciate what this story is doing.

Is Katabasis a Romance?

Some readers have said they were expecting romance due to the way this book was marketed; however, I didn’t see anything about romance in any of the blurbs I read. I didn’t go into this expecting a romance, so I was okay with the very, very, very slow-burning romance that did take place. It’s subtle, and it takes a backseat to the main story of Alice’s personal growth.

Review

› “Cambridge, Michaelmas Term, October. The wind bit, the sun hid, and on the first day of class, when she ought to have been lecturing undergraduates about the dangers of using the Cartesian severance spell to revise without pee breaks, Alice Law set out to rescue her advisor’s soul from the Eight Courts of Hell.”

› Wow! What an opening! I was immediately hooked.

› Katabasis: “The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld”.

› Katabasis is set in an alternate reality in the 1980s, where magic is real and can be studied at university. The main character is Alice, a PhD student who is completely obsessed with becoming a professor. She’s insecure and craves praise, which gives her academic advisor, Professor Grimes, the opportunity to control her and make her life miserable. He abuses his students, and everyone knows, but no one does anything about it. Peter is also attending Cambridge and has Grimes for his advisor as well. Alice thinks Peter is privileged, spoiled, and thinks everything goes his way.

› Professor Grimes is killed in a horrible accident. Alice can’t defend her dissertation and graduate if her advisor is dead – so the obvious solution is to travel to Hell and bring him back. Peter catches Alice drawing the chalk inscriptions, which will cast the spell to travel to Hell. Peter needs the Professor to graduate as well, and thinks two is better than one, so he decides to go with Alice. They both pay the price for magicking yourself to hell – half of your remaining lifespan.

› In this world, the stories about Hell are considered true accounts. Kuang has taken all of these different versions of Hell and morphed pieces of them to create her own version of it, which resembles a university campus. As they travel through the levels of Hell, they both face their own past trauma. Alice peels back layers, bringing down walls to better understand herself. By letting others in, she can let herself out (or maybe the other way around).

› Will they find Grimes? Was he trying to push his students to do their best, or was he just evil? On this journey, Alice will think about the past and question everything she thought she knew.

“Only when one acknowledged the truth about themselves could they wash away the burden of past lives to begin anew.”

› I wanted more development of Peter’s character. Most of the characters are interesting, but I found the villains to be immature and cliché. The emotional growth that Alice experiences is some of the best I’ve ever read. She’s flawed, complicated, and I found her unlikable; however, 52% of reviewers on The Storygraph reported that the characters were “lovable”. I enjoy unlikable characters because they feel authentic. It’s okay to dislike character decisions, and it’s okay for them to be selfish.

› I loved the setting, descriptions, world-building and atmosphere. Kuang is one of the best writers out there right now. I love the style and use of dialogue and point of view. The middle of the plot is slow, but I feel like this was intentional, as Alice and Peter’s journey is tedious, not just through the levels of Hell but also dealing with their trauma. I didn’t really like the ending, but honestly, I didn’t want to put it down. I think this is a unique story with a meaningful message.

APPEAL FACTORS
Storyline: action-packed, character-driven, intricately plotted, unconventional, tragic
Pace: medium
Tone: angsty, high-drama, moody, mystical, thought-provoking, adventurous, challenging, dark, mysterious, sinister, bleak, creepy, disturbing, gruesome.
Humour: dark humour, offbeat, sarcastic
Writing Style: conversational, descriptive, engaging, richly detailed, witty
Character: awkward, brooding, complex, flawed, strong female, unlikeable, well-developed, diverse

Read Alikes:
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

› In the past, I have given a rating out of ten and converted that to a star rating, but I’m no longer giving a star rating here on my blog. I will continue to do that on Goodreads and The Story Graph.

› Final Thoughts
• Katabasis is a satire about academia and the toll it takes on students. This book is about feeling inadequate, forming relationships with reluctant allies, and learning how to love and trust. It discusses the relationship between memory and identity and questions the meaning of life. If you liked Babel, then I think you’ll like Katabasis, as they have a similar academic vibe.

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