Baca

We had a small and intimate Kelab Buku Sepetang meetup discussing April's book of the month: Katabasis by R. F. Kuang.

True enough, one of the reasons for a book club is to see things from a different perspective. We had fun discussing our different views of Hell and the academia world. We also discussed the reality of academia here in Malaysia and in Singapore, specifically in madrasah.

We had so much fun discussing over makan petang that we forgot to take a group picture of the meet up 😅

Till next month, see you later.

My rating: 3.4/5⭐

Reading this for April's Kelab Buku Sepetang book of the month!

Katabasis is a story of Alice and Peter, who voluntarily went to hell to bring back their advisor, Professor Jacob Grimes, who was an as***le. However, Alice had him on a pedestal, even after all she went through.

Peter followed her into hell, ready to sacrifice himself for her, and that he did.

In Hell, they met few other souls: Elspeth and Gradus as well as the Kripke, who hunt down sojourners to collect their blood for magic. That's how Peter met his end.

It took a journey to hell for Alice to appreciate life, and recognize love.

My thoughts:

🔥 This was one of the book that got a lot of attention during its launch. After all this is R. F. Kuang we are talking about. Unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations. When I finally finished it, I was underwhelmed.

🔥 Rebecca's version of hell is just like that of a University, where the sinners have to write a dissertations in order to reincarnate. I don't know what I was expecting, but this was probably why it fell flat for me. I just can't relate.

🔥 I love Peter but even he can't get me invested emotionally. When he died, I have a sense that in the end he'll come back. I was spot on. So in that sense the ending was predictable.

🔥 Alice frustrates me. Her obsession with academy and Grimes just makes me want to smack her.

🔥 The only time I was a bit excited was when Alice went against the Kripke. Otherwise it was monotonous.

🔥 Having said all that, I wanted to acknowledge the research that Rebecca had done in order to write this story. It was comprehensive. It was impressive.