Rhui Jin
R.F. Kuang is an interesting author to me - for one, I identify as a fan of her writing, starting with her Poppy War series and essentially following her career from there, through Babel, Yellowface, and now Katabasis.
When I first read The Poppy War series back in 2020, I was still exploring my taste in adult fantasy (I read Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Seth Dickinson, Becky Chambers, Tamsyn Muir, Samantha Shannon, and many other standalone stuff that year) whilst also coping with lockdown with random BookTube and Goodreads recommended selections. The general consensus on those two platforms for that series was generally positive, and it wasn’t until perhaps a few years later (and many Reddit posts on the r/Fantasy subreddit) that I started to learn that Kuang is… sort of disliked)...?
There have been some convincing arguments that suggest Kuang writes in a straightforward way (she doesn’t toy with prose much, with the exception of Babel) and makes it clear what her core ideologies are. I’ve been honestly sort of taking these comments with a grain of salt, as I had a perfectly decent time reading all her past books and found them to be entertaining enough and thematically interesting as well to sustain my interest.
In a more biased way, I did enjoy seeing a Chinese Asian woman make waves in the reading community. Just take a look at the number of ratings on Goodreads for her books, her presence on social media, all the conversations (good and bad) on the net, and you can see that she is an anomaly in the fantasy genre. And I mostly thought (and still do think) that that’s a good thing.
Now, for Katabasis specifically, we have such a stunning premise. We get Alice, the main character of the story - a graduate Magician student under the wings of Professor Grimes, who in this universe is some top-shot professor who had to climb the ranks to get to his position. The book starts off with an introduction of Alice and how she was going to “Magick” her way into Hell. And not just any hell, it was specifically Dante’s nine levels of hell.
That in itself hooked me in well. But… we also get Peter, who is introduced as Alice’s academic rival, one who Grimes has pitted them both with one another. He is the charming, popular, and mysterious love interest, and he ends up inviting himself to this trip to Hell with Alice.
So far, so good? Now I would say the book had a pretty promising start, perhaps the first 15% was building up the plot, and though I found the MC slightly less likable than all the other characters (with the exception of Yellowface, probably, but that was probably intentional from Kuang’s end), I had thought that there would be growth in that department.
Boy, I was wrong. This was one of the messiest books plot-wise (and also characters) I’ve read this year. From the wishy-washy relationship scenes to the repetitiveness of Alice’s actions, and a very weak plot-thread.
More MAJOR spoilers:
From the beginning of the book, we are told that Alice was visiting Hell to get Grimes back. Okay, we aren’t super sure why, but that’s fine, it’ll probably be revealed. Alice eventually reveals that she not only wants to bring him back, but she also wants to bring him back mutilated. Then, the book ends with Alice finding Grimes and deciding that he should just be permanently banished without much resolution on what happened between her and Grimes (with the exception of a short back-and-forth conversation) and getting Peter back from the dead. Not much conversation aside from a confession of love between them both happens, and the book ends there.
If it were only the lackluster conclusion to the main plot line, I would be okay as long as the other aspects, such as characterizations and the world itself, were good. Unfortunately, I did not like Alice much, and Peter was just fine. I do understand that sometimes characters are just meant to be unlikable, but it did feel at times that there were inconsistencies in Alice’s characterization, repetition in similar thought patterns with no conclusion, and that she does things that are just random (thinking of the scenes where she ate the cat/leopard) and have no good reasoning. The Hell concept, though interesting, ended up falling flat. Descriptions of the environment were sparse, and aside from knowing which section of Hell they were at, and scenes where some architecture was described, you don’t really know why it’s Hell at all, aside from the author telling you it’s supposed to be Hell.
I would say that the side characters in this book were good. This is where I find myself wishing that Kuang had focused more on them! Elspeth had great humor, and I just know that Kuang has it in her to write amazing dialogue, and that perhaps this has been more of a passion project where she’s self-inserting herself and her partner rather than focusing on what could make the story better.
And for that, I can’t blame her too much. I understand that sometimes books are just meant to be for the author and their loved ones. I can see her passion for the many philosophical texts references that flew over my head and her questioning these, and her love (and hate) for academia.
Although I can’t say I enjoyed this one as much as her other works, I can see her love for the knowledge, the academic world, her partner, and maybe that just doesn’t work for me this time around, but perhaps it can with another person. Until the next R.F. Kuang book comes out, and I try that out, I’ll have to still recommend Yellowface as an entry point to her work. A lot more of a popcorn-ish type of story to read, but so so readable.. That one’s about how a Caucasian author steals the work of her Chinese best friend and tries to sell it as her own, and all the effects that come with that.
Until then, unfortunately, this one is a 2-star read that I probably won’t revisit anytime soon :/
If you’re interested in trying out the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9780063021495. If you’re interested in Yellowface, you can see: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9780063250840. I earn a small commission if you purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you.
Originally posted at rhuijin.cc.
R.F. Kuang is an interesting author to me - for one, I identify as a fan of her writing, starting with her Poppy War series and essentially following her career from there, through Babel, Yellowface, and now Katabasis.
When I first read The Poppy War series back in 2020, I was still exploring my taste in adult fantasy (I read Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Seth Dickinson, Becky Chambers, Tamsyn Muir, Samantha Shannon, and many other standalone stuff that year) whilst also coping with lockdown with random BookTube and Goodreads recommended selections. The general consensus on those two platforms for that series was generally positive, and it wasn’t until perhaps a few years later (and many Reddit posts on the r/Fantasy subreddit) that I started to learn that Kuang is… sort of disliked)...?
There have been some convincing arguments that suggest Kuang writes in a straightforward way (she doesn’t toy with prose much, with the exception of Babel) and makes it clear what her core ideologies are. I’ve been honestly sort of taking these comments with a grain of salt, as I had a perfectly decent time reading all her past books and found them to be entertaining enough and thematically interesting as well to sustain my interest.
In a more biased way, I did enjoy seeing a Chinese Asian woman make waves in the reading community. Just take a look at the number of ratings on Goodreads for her books, her presence on social media, all the conversations (good and bad) on the net, and you can see that she is an anomaly in the fantasy genre. And I mostly thought (and still do think) that that’s a good thing.
Now, for Katabasis specifically, we have such a stunning premise. We get Alice, the main character of the story - a graduate Magician student under the wings of Professor Grimes, who in this universe is some top-shot professor who had to climb the ranks to get to his position. The book starts off with an introduction of Alice and how she was going to “Magick” her way into Hell. And not just any hell, it was specifically Dante’s nine levels of hell.
That in itself hooked me in well. But… we also get Peter, who is introduced as Alice’s academic rival, one who Grimes has pitted them both with one another. He is the charming, popular, and mysterious love interest, and he ends up inviting himself to this trip to Hell with Alice.
So far, so good? Now I would say the book had a pretty promising start, perhaps the first 15% was building up the plot, and though I found the MC slightly less likable than all the other characters (with the exception of Yellowface, probably, but that was probably intentional from Kuang’s end), I had thought that there would be growth in that department.
Boy, I was wrong. This was one of the messiest books plot-wise (and also characters) I’ve read this year. From the wishy-washy relationship scenes to the repetitiveness of Alice’s actions, and a very weak plot-thread.
More MAJOR spoilers:
From the beginning of the book, we are told that Alice was visiting Hell to get Grimes back. Okay, we aren’t super sure why, but that’s fine, it’ll probably be revealed. Alice eventually reveals that she not only wants to bring him back, but she also wants to bring him back mutilated. Then, the book ends with Alice finding Grimes and deciding that he should just be permanently banished without much resolution on what happened between her and Grimes (with the exception of a short back-and-forth conversation) and getting Peter back from the dead. Not much conversation aside from a confession of love between them both happens, and the book ends there.
If it were only the lackluster conclusion to the main plot line, I would be okay as long as the other aspects, such as characterizations and the world itself, were good. Unfortunately, I did not like Alice much, and Peter was just fine. I do understand that sometimes characters are just meant to be unlikable, but it did feel at times that there were inconsistencies in Alice’s characterization, repetition in similar thought patterns with no conclusion, and that she does things that are just random (thinking of the scenes where she ate the cat/leopard) and have no good reasoning. The Hell concept, though interesting, ended up falling flat. Descriptions of the environment were sparse, and aside from knowing which section of Hell they were at, and scenes where some architecture was described, you don’t really know why it’s Hell at all, aside from the author telling you it’s supposed to be Hell.
I would say that the side characters in this book were good. This is where I find myself wishing that Kuang had focused more on them! Elspeth had great humor, and I just know that Kuang has it in her to write amazing dialogue, and that perhaps this has been more of a passion project where she’s self-inserting herself and her partner rather than focusing on what could make the story better.
And for that, I can’t blame her too much. I understand that sometimes books are just meant to be for the author and their loved ones. I can see her passion for the many philosophical texts references that flew over my head and her questioning these, and her love (and hate) for academia.
Although I can’t say I enjoyed this one as much as her other works, I can see her love for the knowledge, the academic world, her partner, and maybe that just doesn’t work for me this time around, but perhaps it can with another person. Until the next R.F. Kuang book comes out, and I try that out, I’ll have to still recommend Yellowface as an entry point to her work. A lot more of a popcorn-ish type of story to read, but so so readable.. That one’s about how a Caucasian author steals the work of her Chinese best friend and tries to sell it as her own, and all the effects that come with that.
Until then, unfortunately, this one is a 2-star read that I probably won’t revisit anytime soon :/
If you’re interested in trying out the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9780063021495. If you’re interested in Yellowface, you can see: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9780063250840. I earn a small commission if you purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you.
Originally posted at rhuijin.cc.
This was a fun little heartwarming book - it reminded me a lot of "A Man on the Inside", which I watched shortly before I started this one. And perhaps even A Man Called Otto movie (which is also based on a book).
The story is pretty character-focused, where we alternate between a widowed man, Frank, and a kid (I think 7-8 years old) who is the child of a new neighbour that moved in. I would say that in terms of emotional impact it didn't quite get me, perhaps because I've already seen similar themes and plot from A Man Called Otto (replace the kid with an adult woman haha) which was still fresh in my mind.
What I did find interesting was how the author wrote Red's perspective as well - I don't think I've read from a POV of someone this young, and it was nice to see it done here.
A quick summary of the plot, if it could be something you might want to read:
Frank is depressed and recently widowed, and has a barely there relationship with his son, Michael. Red and his mother moved in next to him - and turns out Red's mother used to be Frank's wife's caretaker when she was sick. Frank can't stand Red's constant questions or him playing on his trampoline, but things start to change when Frank had no choice but to look after Red.
I think I would've enjoyed this a lot better if I had read it before I watched the previous stuff I mentioned earlier - it just didn't hit as hard as those, but it was still a great read nonetheless.
If you’re interested in the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781472297433. I earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Originally posted at www.rhuijin.cc.
This was a fun little heartwarming book - it reminded me a lot of "A Man on the Inside", which I watched shortly before I started this one. And perhaps even A Man Called Otto movie (which is also based on a book).
The story is pretty character-focused, where we alternate between a widowed man, Frank, and a kid (I think 7-8 years old) who is the child of a new neighbour that moved in. I would say that in terms of emotional impact it didn't quite get me, perhaps because I've already seen similar themes and plot from A Man Called Otto (replace the kid with an adult woman haha) which was still fresh in my mind.
What I did find interesting was how the author wrote Red's perspective as well - I don't think I've read from a POV of someone this young, and it was nice to see it done here.
A quick summary of the plot, if it could be something you might want to read:
Frank is depressed and recently widowed, and has a barely there relationship with his son, Michael. Red and his mother moved in next to him - and turns out Red's mother used to be Frank's wife's caretaker when she was sick. Frank can't stand Red's constant questions or him playing on his trampoline, but things start to change when Frank had no choice but to look after Red.
I think I would've enjoyed this a lot better if I had read it before I watched the previous stuff I mentioned earlier - it just didn't hit as hard as those, but it was still a great read nonetheless.
If you’re interested in the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781472297433. I earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Originally posted at www.rhuijin.cc.
Heather Walter writes great retellings. I was introduced to her writing through her Malice Duology, a Maleficient retelling. She seems to be exploring these retellings through the lens of the 'villain' instead of the stereotypical hero/princess as the main character trope.
In this series (it is a duology, something I did not know till I was bout 2/3 into the book haha), Walter decided to go with a Snow White retelling, with a focus on the evil queen instead. As I only have the Disney cartoon movie as a reference, I don't think I'm qualified to speak on how it compares to the OG story. However, compared to the Disney movie, I would say that it is very different from it and you shouldn't be reading this if you're looking for an almost 1:1 plot.
The main character is Alycent, the second daughter of the current ruling witch of a coven. In the story, we learn that being a witch is illegal and when outside of the coven areas, witches try to blend in as much so they don't get burned. In the quest to bring back her elder sister who passed away, Alycent had to venture into the King's castles disguised as a sort of handmaiden.
Throughout the series, we also have a romance subplot. Jacquetta, Alycent's childhood romantic partner, turns up with suspicious motives. An event happens that causes Jacquetta to invite herself to join Alycent on her journey to the castle, and we get to see the two banter and explore their pasts (in not-so-pleasant ways).
I would say that the politick-ing in this one is better than the previous books from Walter. I just felt like it was less frustrating and had more depth and twists that I didn't see coming. Though I'm not much of someone who would constantly guess or try to connect the lines on purpose. The mystery of Jacquetta's *true* intentions being around Alycent as well as some of the other characters like the King and Alycent's mother was plenty enough to keep me intrigued.
Although I felt like the book was trying to push for an enemies-to-lover vibe between Alycent and Jacquetta at first, it turned into quite a tame and chill reconciliation.
Overall, I had a good time with this one. I do think the ending felt a tad rushed? The time between the climax of everything and when Alycent becomes the 'evil witch' is super short. However, I liked how dramatically the author ended it (there's a whole scene where she says the infamous line: mirror mirror in the wall, who is the fairest of them all).
I will be reading the second one as I'm quite curious to see how this will go!
If you’re interested in the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9780593598375. I earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Originally posted at www.rhuijin.cc.
Heather Walter writes great retellings. I was introduced to her writing through her Malice Duology, a Maleficient retelling. She seems to be exploring these retellings through the lens of the 'villain' instead of the stereotypical hero/princess as the main character trope.
In this series (it is a duology, something I did not know till I was bout 2/3 into the book haha), Walter decided to go with a Snow White retelling, with a focus on the evil queen instead. As I only have the Disney cartoon movie as a reference, I don't think I'm qualified to speak on how it compares to the OG story. However, compared to the Disney movie, I would say that it is very different from it and you shouldn't be reading this if you're looking for an almost 1:1 plot.
The main character is Alycent, the second daughter of the current ruling witch of a coven. In the story, we learn that being a witch is illegal and when outside of the coven areas, witches try to blend in as much so they don't get burned. In the quest to bring back her elder sister who passed away, Alycent had to venture into the King's castles disguised as a sort of handmaiden.
Throughout the series, we also have a romance subplot. Jacquetta, Alycent's childhood romantic partner, turns up with suspicious motives. An event happens that causes Jacquetta to invite herself to join Alycent on her journey to the castle, and we get to see the two banter and explore their pasts (in not-so-pleasant ways).
I would say that the politick-ing in this one is better than the previous books from Walter. I just felt like it was less frustrating and had more depth and twists that I didn't see coming. Though I'm not much of someone who would constantly guess or try to connect the lines on purpose. The mystery of Jacquetta's *true* intentions being around Alycent as well as some of the other characters like the King and Alycent's mother was plenty enough to keep me intrigued.
Although I felt like the book was trying to push for an enemies-to-lover vibe between Alycent and Jacquetta at first, it turned into quite a tame and chill reconciliation.
Overall, I had a good time with this one. I do think the ending felt a tad rushed? The time between the climax of everything and when Alycent becomes the 'evil witch' is super short. However, I liked how dramatically the author ended it (there's a whole scene where she says the infamous line: mirror mirror in the wall, who is the fairest of them all).
I will be reading the second one as I'm quite curious to see how this will go!
If you’re interested in the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9780593598375. I earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Originally posted at www.rhuijin.cc.
I wanted to like this story, but the characterizations were pretty poor. I listened to the audiobook version of this, and when the main character describes her husband, she frames it in a way that sounds like it's supposed to be a green flag, but in actuality, it felt like she didn't really know him at all, and any sane person would start firing questions.
The plot revolves around Tricia and Ethan, who recently married and are looking to purchase a new house. They got stranded in one of the properties their agent was supposed to showcase due to the weather, and decided to stay in for shelter. After some peeking around, they realized that it was home to Adrienne, a psychiatrist who had disappeared mysteriously.
Although I did appreciate the case transcripts Adrienne's POV provided, I felt that the twists were predictable and sometimes non-sensical. The writing style was also not my cup-of-tea, and to be frank, it did feel pretty cliched at times too. If I would to compliment the author, I would say that I think she did a good job in showcasing the unreliable narrator, as she was very unreliable. Sometimes Tricia would provide very clear clues that she is aware of whatever is in front of her, and sometimes she is sort of 'faking' her inner monologues.
This was an easy listen overall, and I can see how it could be entertaining for some readers. The pacing was smooth, and one could probably finish it in 1-2 sittings! Not my taste, but perhaps someone else's...
I’m sorry, P, I think this might not be my genre...
If you’d like to read the book yourself, you can find it here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781728296166. By purchasing through this link, I’ll earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you), and you’ll be helping support independent bookstores. You can read more about how Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores on their website!
Originally posted at rhuijin.cc.
I wanted to like this story, but the characterizations were pretty poor. I listened to the audiobook version of this, and when the main character describes her husband, she frames it in a way that sounds like it's supposed to be a green flag, but in actuality, it felt like she didn't really know him at all, and any sane person would start firing questions.
The plot revolves around Tricia and Ethan, who recently married and are looking to purchase a new house. They got stranded in one of the properties their agent was supposed to showcase due to the weather, and decided to stay in for shelter. After some peeking around, they realized that it was home to Adrienne, a psychiatrist who had disappeared mysteriously.
Although I did appreciate the case transcripts Adrienne's POV provided, I felt that the twists were predictable and sometimes non-sensical. The writing style was also not my cup-of-tea, and to be frank, it did feel pretty cliched at times too. If I would to compliment the author, I would say that I think she did a good job in showcasing the unreliable narrator, as she was very unreliable. Sometimes Tricia would provide very clear clues that she is aware of whatever is in front of her, and sometimes she is sort of 'faking' her inner monologues.
This was an easy listen overall, and I can see how it could be entertaining for some readers. The pacing was smooth, and one could probably finish it in 1-2 sittings! Not my taste, but perhaps someone else's...
I’m sorry, P, I think this might not be my genre...
If you’d like to read the book yourself, you can find it here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781728296166. By purchasing through this link, I’ll earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you), and you’ll be helping support independent bookstores. You can read more about how Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores on their website!
Originally posted at rhuijin.cc.
The co-founder of Chess.com puts out an autobiography - one would assume it would be about his journey into creating the world's largest online Chess platform (and a large contributor to how large online chess has become, professional and non-professional wise), perhaps following the standard high-school-dropout finds an incredible idea and makes big bucks getting a startup with no VC funding, etc.
But this wasn't quite like those stories, and I had a great time with it. This follows Danny's journey in a cult called "Church of Immortal Consciousness" and how he essentially grew up being passed around the community members within the cult, was manipulated into thinking that his "purpose" was chess, and emotionally (and physically) abused by the adults around him.
Apart from the recounts of his experience within the cult, I found his account of the Hans Niemann scandal particularly interesting. With my very limited (and perhaps biased) knowledge of the scandals recounted by a few chess YouTube personalities, it seems that Danny is very firm in his stance that Hans did indeed cheat and has a history of cheating.
In light of the recent death of Daniel Naroditsky, I kind of hoped that the book could've touched on that topic as well. Especially that Daniel has been outspoken about being selected to be proctored by Chess.com and has mentioned how some of these playing conditions had led him to unfair playing conditions. It really does seem like cheating is going to be dominating the conversations within chess communities for the foreseeable future, and frankly, I don't really know how the issues could be resolved.
Overall, I recommend this book, but I did wrongly assume that it would've been more focused on Chess.com's formation. It definitely did touch on that but the majority of the book is centered on Danny's journey (understandably so), and even when he was focusing on Chess.com matters, the Niemann v. Carlsen scandal took up the majority of the word count.
If you’re interested in the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781541703308. I earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.
If you'd like to see some of the references for the above, visit my blog linked with this post!
Originally posted at rhuijin.cc.
The co-founder of Chess.com puts out an autobiography - one would assume it would be about his journey into creating the world's largest online Chess platform (and a large contributor to how large online chess has become, professional and non-professional wise), perhaps following the standard high-school-dropout finds an incredible idea and makes big bucks getting a startup with no VC funding, etc.
But this wasn't quite like those stories, and I had a great time with it. This follows Danny's journey in a cult called "Church of Immortal Consciousness" and how he essentially grew up being passed around the community members within the cult, was manipulated into thinking that his "purpose" was chess, and emotionally (and physically) abused by the adults around him.
Apart from the recounts of his experience within the cult, I found his account of the Hans Niemann scandal particularly interesting. With my very limited (and perhaps biased) knowledge of the scandals recounted by a few chess YouTube personalities, it seems that Danny is very firm in his stance that Hans did indeed cheat and has a history of cheating.
In light of the recent death of Daniel Naroditsky, I kind of hoped that the book could've touched on that topic as well. Especially that Daniel has been outspoken about being selected to be proctored by Chess.com and has mentioned how some of these playing conditions had led him to unfair playing conditions. It really does seem like cheating is going to be dominating the conversations within chess communities for the foreseeable future, and frankly, I don't really know how the issues could be resolved.
Overall, I recommend this book, but I did wrongly assume that it would've been more focused on Chess.com's formation. It definitely did touch on that but the majority of the book is centered on Danny's journey (understandably so), and even when he was focusing on Chess.com matters, the Niemann v. Carlsen scandal took up the majority of the word count.
If you’re interested in the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781541703308. I earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.
If you'd like to see some of the references for the above, visit my blog linked with this post!
Originally posted at rhuijin.cc.
Updated a reading goal:
Read 32 books by December 30, 2025
Progress so far: 25 / 32 78%
Added to listAudiobookswith 101 books.
