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

A book that will make you laugh and cry

I'm biased because I really enjoy R.F. Kuang's books, but this one made me laugh so much, and it also made me weep, sob, cry... plenty of times. By the end I was a mess.

The performance by Morag Sims and Will Watt made this story even more immersive. I'm so glad I got to experience it this way: I read the ebook while listening to the audiobook. It was so fun.

I learned a lot in this book — concepts that I otherwise would have never encountered. It was nice to learn new things.

I will always, always think of Alice and Peter. Always. (And Elspeth and Archimedes.) I will think of them fondly.

First full read of a book

I was very interested when I first heard of this title awhile back, and was surprised how hooked I got on listening to the story as well as always wondering what’s up with Peter!

The intelligence behind the story and writing

The way this woman writes is crazy to me. Each time I read one of her books, I feel like I’m learning soooo much and I get this urge of signing up for another major in college, but this time in linguistics. She is an infinite source of knowledge and I love her stories tremendously ❤️

Dark academia HG

She does it again! I was engaged and engrossed. I devoured this book. I can see why ppl think this reads like a textbook, but if you are not an academic and don’t understand the logic or background info then I can see why. It’s not for everyone. This will be a book I will re-read again seasonally. Adding it to my dark academia list.

A study in self discovery

Most of what I get out of reading this author tends to be a lesson in learning to self audit. A deep dive into the characters throughout the narrative lends to comparison between myself and the characters. Well written and thought provoking.

Never free from Writing college papers

The fact that hell has consistent levels where you have to write papers or dissertations, and that they will never be good enough. This tracks so well. Honestly, this is the most accurate description of Hell I have ever come across.

Purposeful

I really enjoyed this book. Everything felt purposeful and important to the story even if at the time it wasn’t apparent. I could read this again and I think I would find more meaning that I missed with the first listen.

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.!

Pretentious babbling shallow garbage

DNF. I can’t force myself to choke on this nonsense for another moment. This is not fantasy. Nor is it a love story, but for a crappy story that highlights an author completely in love with herself.