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Emi

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Emi rated a book it was ok

Katabasis

by R.F. Kuang (Goodreads Author)

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Emi said: " I eventually gave this up when i just couldn't take the unnecessary triggers anymore and i decided that i won't cheer for a character who tortures cats and dogs to death just because she's obsessed with her freakin teacher and her own grades and has I eventually gave this up when i just couldn't take the unnecessary triggers anymore and i decided that i won't cheer for a character who tortures cats and dogs to death just because she's obsessed with her freakin teacher and her own grades and has the backbone of an amoeba; i don't care what she does, she can go to hell. Actually, i hope she stays there!

I am not a hyper-sensitive person and i can take triggers pretty well (i studied criminology for god's sake) but reading a book where cruelty and gore are used in such a cheap and unnecesary manner makes me think of the author's values itself and frankly i don't even want to read an author who's willing to trivialize such type of abuse. I mean, we're not talking about descriptions of hell here, but about things that the main character did, and i'm supposed to go along a hellish journey with that biatch? I mean, why..? Nope, thanks.

"If she'd ever felt ethical compunctions about it, she'd stopped caring by the end". "Anyhow, they were only mice". But also: "First rats and guinea pigs, and then cats and dogs shaved down to trembling skin". So in fact to her it was okay because "they were only stray dogs and cats"! WTH..??
Why would i even care to spend hours living in such a character's mind for Fs' sake..? I don't trust to go with this story any further. I read to entertain myself, not to feel appaled or disgusted, these are not the feelings i look for when reading a book.

And sure i like complex characters and characters who're not all good or all bad. All kinds of triggers are necessary in order to tell a good story but there are countless ways to do that. To a writer the possibilities are almost endless. Yet she chose to create a bunch of boring, vain characters with psychopatic traits, and so i ask myself: why the freak would i want to spend hours of my lifetime with such nasty people..?? While thousands other wonderful books are waiting, with at least sth to cheer for throughout their stories!

Perhaps authors are capable of dissociating themselves in order to write their books with such gore and cruelty towards the innocent, but at the same time i have the creepy feeling that whenever this happens it might in fact serve as an outlet for the author's subconscious darkside.
But if i ever want to read such, i go back to my forensic studies. At least i can take sth good out of those and i know from the very start that i'm not reading them to entertain myself.
I felt there was no development, no purpose and no value to all the graphically described triggers, they were just dumped there for shock value or just like adding a bit of sth else to the potpourri.

I also felt that the description of hell was also lacking depth and was solely based on some exotic gods and legends, nothing original or new to make me think about. All this mixed with some smarty-pants wannabe mathematical babbling... which only bored the hell out of me since it felt so unnecessary and decorative, like trying to mix water with oil and call it legit magic. You know, just because it has math in it. :))

I've watched a few of Kuang's interviews and liked her so much, i love academia a lot and so i bought all of her books (started with this one) and now i'm afraid that i'd just have to give them all away if all of them prove to be a pile of gore and human vanity.
To each their own. ...more "

Feb 16, 2026 01:39AM · see review

Emi is currently reading

The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern (Goodreads Author)

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Jan 24, 2026 08:13AM

Emi’s Quotes

“When you grieve someone you see their message in everything. Even in the sunlight on a blade of grass. The whole world becomes their translator.”
― Matt Haig, The Life Impossible

tags: grief-and-loss

28 likes

“There's a lot more to being human than this finite, mundane, earthbound world we live in, that we're really part of a much greater cosmic whole that's all around us.”
― Kelly Bishop, The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir

tags: memoir, philosophy-of-life, space

22 likes

“People say that love is rare. I am not so sure. What is rare is something even more desirable. Understanding. There is no point in being loved if you are not understood. They are simply loving an idea of you they have in their mind. They are in love with love. They are in love with their loving. To be understood. And not only that, but to be understood and appreciated once understood. That is what matters.”
― Matt Haig, The Life Impossible

67 likes

“I admit it, given a choice, with a handful of exceptions, I tend to prefer the company of animals to the company of people. Animals are honest—there’s not a hint of pretense about them, they just unapologetically are who they are, and their capacity to love and be loved outshines ours by about a million.”
― Kelly Bishop, The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir

43 likes

“If the man in her dream had taught her one thing above all else, it was hope. The ability to keep bouncing back. To keep raising her voice against the madness of the world.”
― Sanaka Hiiragi, The Lantern of Lost Memories

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