Katabasis

A Novel

De: R. F. Kuang

Narrado por: Morag Sims, Will Watt

Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.

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.

©2025 R. F. Kuang (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers

True to its title

Katabasis is a wild ride into Hell and the relationship between two people. I loved the character development spread out across a journey and set against a surreal backdrop.

journey through boredom

the story starts with an interesting plot but nothing happens. the entire journey is boring and all of the characters are paper thin. the voice actors are quite talented however!

Epic

I really liked this. It is a epic story unlike anything I have ever read. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it was a little shorter. it is also not my favorite by the author, but still a great read.

Good but drawn out

The story was good but the author tends to overly describe things, as if he needs things to be over analyzed to the point where it’s hard to pay attention and the reader gets bored.

Don’t bother with the audio book

Narrators American accent was distractingly bad. Also Peter’s narrator talked at .000001 mph. Just read the physical book. Writing was great as always from this author

Immature musings of the protagonist

Basic idea was clever, but dragged in the middle. Main character had episodes of maudlin thoughts and behaviors that didn’t work for me

Meh

I was a big fan of babel. And the premise here was so exciting. but the execution really missed the mark

The best

R.F.Kuang is one of the great writer’s of our time. This is an incredible addition to the body of her work.
It’s not as sad as the others, but even more beautiful than the rest.

Disappointed

Okay, I am surprised at my 3 star rating. The first half of the book was gearing up to be a 5 star read but then the big second act catastrophe happens and everything went down hill. The FMC Alice is deeply unlikable. She’s not a girls girl, not a boys girl, she is so self destructive, horribly insecure, while also being incredibly self righteous & important. There’s a word for when someone thinks too highly of themselves and I can’t think of it atm but that is Alice to a T. Then there’s homeboy Peter Murdoch, portrayed as a golden retriever golden boy who skates through life because he is so kind, intelligent, and talented. They’re academic rivals, obviously. Apparently this was supposed to be an enemies to lovers but I took it more as a sociopath (Alice) having a complete personality change and then insta love for some reason. And my word, the exploration of hell was so tedious. It started out super engaging, the courts were mirrors of the real world but people are stuck in purgatory sort of, and then it just became so info dumpy, theory ridden, magical theory, hell lore, and it completely took me out of the story. What tipped me over the edge was the last chapter, I can’t stand it when authors have their characters say “I love you” with no basis like it’s supposed to fill in all the empty emotional space they haven’t written between their characters. This is rambley but this was such a letdown imo!! Also also, wth happened to the plot?!?! They go down to save their professors soul and then for nearly the last half of the book Alice is in soul-exploration la la land, not giving a rats ass about anyone or herself and then in the last 2 chapters everything is resolved?! No thank you. I was rooting for no one, couldn’t care less what happened, and found the ending to be annoying and undeserving.

Brilliant!

So far I love the book and once I got to the end and finish it, it was just amazing. I loved it. The writing style was brilliant makes you really think about life, but also the characters were so well written not so much romantic there were some parts where were sprinkled in it can make you frustrated at some point because the characters choices but I love it. It’s such a good read.!