Oooooo, I loved this. Was I lost at times because a lot of the concepts are lofty and the literal landscape of the novel is Hell itself, a place we humans on the topside will speculate about for probably forever? Yes. But I had a good time stumbling around the psyche of the insanely complex Alice Law (and by extension, bumbling, genius Peter Murdoch). I think the base concept of this novel is quite grand: critique the inclusive echo chamber that is academia by creating a character who doesn't know how to deal with misogyny or life without academic validation, and send that character (who happens to study analytic magick) into the depths of the Underworld to save her only hope of riding the high of intellectual praise forever: her terrible academic advisor. Oh, and throw in her academic rival who isn't really her rival at all for the promises of a heartwrenching romance (cause cmon, we gotta have that). Truly, I think my favorite part of this novel is the very first paragraph; it doesn't waste any time jumping into the story, but rather communicates that a lot has already happened, and a trip to Hell is the only feasible way to right a horrible wrong. One of my favorite aspects of the actual storytelling structure consisted of entire chapters devoted to explaining character backstories or pivotal events in their lives that occurred before this sojourn to Hell. From Alice, to Peter, and even the infamous Professor Jacob Grimes, each of these seemingly nonlinear sections that press "pause" on the A-plot of traveling through the eight courts of the Underworld builds up the overall story and essence of each character and their motives so well. By the time I got to the end, I felt like I'd been given everything I needed to know how these people ended up risking half of their lifespans for one verbally abusive white man (though Grimes remained pretty elusive to me). The book's continual critique of what it's like to stay in a space like academia despite constant pressure, lack of sleep, gender stereotypes, threats of sexual and coercive natures, and more really pulled at my heartstrings and associations with what being in higher education afforded for women in the 1980s.
I think this book has moments where it kind of skates above the actual plot for the sake of exploring some tenet of philosophy or existentialism, which might not appeal to readers who are just looking for more of a fantasy-based quest through Hell. I recommend it nonetheless. If nothing else, the ending brought me to the very edge of tears. :)
(P.S. Getting to meet R.F. Kuang at an author event at my school and have her sign my Katabasis copy was pretty cool, too.)



Some of my favorite quotes from Katabasis:

"This was the key to flourishing in graduate school. You could do anything if you were delusional."

"I think anything is tolerable when one is asleep."

"The best libraries were like the best churches: old and musty, preindustrial."

"Nice libraries whispered: Everyone who has passed through here is very important, and so are you."

"...no siren's call was as alluring as the sea itself, and the quiet dark beyond the shore."

"That was one of the joys of specializing in linguistics: the escape from pure maths."

"Complete happiness was some form of study, said Aristotle. And they were so happy; covering entire blackboards with chalk in an inspired frenzy, then erasing the whole thing to start over again."

"And if falling in love was discovery, was letting yourself be discovered the equivalent to being loved?"

"'I only like knowing what awaits,' said Alice. 'That's all.'"

"...all books, like wine, had a readerly aroma that ripened with age, which was why bookstores and libraries smelled so good."

"'Pain is interesting, and you can bear anything as long as it's interesting.'"

"She wanted to crash brilliantly against something, and when she went she wanted to leave a mark."

"What a miracle a person was, she thought. They took up so little space. The difference between presence and absence was not even a square meter of matter. Yet now that Peter was here, the whole world shone brighter."

"Peter Murdoch was a book with no ending and all she wanted to do with the rest of her life was to trace her finger down every page."

I think I grossly underestimated how much I could end up liking an academia-inspired romance. Which is kinda silly, cause my whole life is pretty much academia-centered. While I'm no scientist, I can tell this well-written romance was written by a scientist (a round of applause for such a multitalented individual!), and the educational/workplace environments and scenarios Adam and Olive find themselves in (as well as sunscreen-adjacent sillier scenarios) were so so fun to read.
Olive grew on me as an incredibly likeable main character. I love how she has very concrete academic and professional goals that she pursues with discipline and cute personality quirks. She's a girl in STEM, but she's also just a girl. I love how she's not some dainty protagonist who forgets to eat in the "oops, I'll try harder tomorrow!" type of way, but rather gets so lost in her research and atempts to do right by her late mother with her interest in cancer research that Adam can't help but fall in love with her stubborn will and intense intelligence from the literal get go. And Adam, though at times a little on-the-nose in his "I hate everyone but you-ness," really grew on me as well. I really liked how we seem to learn more about him as a character through his different friendships/how other people interact with and describe him. Tom Benton's character development, while feeling predictable at times, surprised me for the most part. I liked how Holden became more a part of the main plot than I was expecting, too. 
Summarily, my take on miscommunication tropes in romance novels is that I can only barely stand them if they're pulled off just right and don't drag on for too long. This novel hits this trope's sweet spot, I think, because Olive doesn't remain ignorant of who the "bathroom man" was for the entire length of the book, and it becomes dramatically ironic for readers to grasp Adam's feelings pretty early on in the narrative. We love a grumpy simp of a man. Overall, this was such a fun read with more depth than I initially gave it credit for!



Some of my favorite quotes from The Love Hypothesis:

"Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man."

"It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when she was sitting on her bed staring at the Boston skyline and chewing on her lunch, that Olive realized that the protein bar Adam had given her was covered in chocolate."

This is a 5-star read for me with hardly any notes! I hardly read contemporary fiction when there's just so much fantasy fiction out there, so this was a real treat!
Every time I recommended this book to someone while I was still in the midst of reading it (which happened more than once), I'd really minimally describe the premise and feel like I was falling so short of what the novel is really about. But books that encompass the wholeness of human friendship, miscommunication, and creativity should be difficult to describe! Even now as I write, I think my comparisons of this piece of art to others I love and descriptions of how the plot and characters made me feel are the avenues by which I want to format this review.
I got about halfway through this (I listened to the audiobook version and loved the readers) and felt like I'd been slowly inching my way through the plot for forever. I felt similarly when I watched Scott Pilgrim v. the World and Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. I think this may be due to the fact that this book holds so much in the backstories and desires of its characters. Well-rounded, developed, heartbreakingly real characters are what I search for in every story and remember long after reaching 'the end.' I'm so glad to say this is true of Sadie, Sam, and Marx for me. I didn't expect to become so attached to them as a trio and individual people (especially Marx). This review will not indulge in any spoilers... so I'll end this discussion here.
This book made me feel like I'd lived the entire span of a human life in the few weeks it took me to entirely finish this book. That's no small feat for a writer, or really any sort of creative, to invoke in a reader with their art. The timeline does plenty of jumping around from present times to childhood, even into an alternate video game world (jarring, yes, but oh so satisfying a payoff). I adored how this stylistic choice contributed to making the conclusion more gratifying and full-bodied. I really didn't know how this was going to end---perhaps on some sort of video game metaphor?---but ended up loving the author's choice.
Really, I have nothing negative to say about this book or my reading experience. *mic drop*



Some of my favorite quotes from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow:

"Sam's doctor said to him, 'The good news is that the pain is in your head.'
But I am in my head, Sam thought."

"The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time."

"And what is love, in the end?" Alabaster said. "Except the irrational desire to put evolutionary competitiveness aside in order to ease someone else's journey through life?"

"This is what time travel is. It’s looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known a significant time."

"It isn’t a sadness, but a joy, that we don’t do the same things for the length of our lives."