Graceish ✨’s Reviews > Katabasis > Status Update

I *literally* exclaimed and threw my book on the counter. HOLY. SHIT.

How did she start the fire?

I am *sick* and tired of fantasy books having something terrible happen to a cat, domestic, wild, or otherwise. What is this trend?!

I am SUPER confused by the time of this book. So many indicators put Alice in postgraduate work in the mid 80s, but here it’s saying Alice read Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style in grade school. That book was published in 1999.

[“…They say to write until you've done your best work, and when you've done your best work, the ships will come to bring you across the Lethe."
"What's the point of them?"
"Entertainment, I'm sure. I certainly enjoy reading others' drafts. I came upon a whole stack subtitled My Lolita the other day. Now, that one was really fun!"]

The way this made me grimace.

[She tried to place him at least geographically or temporally, because then she could at least rack her memory for mention of any horrendous crimes, say, at Yale in the sixties, but Gradus had been so long in the underworld that he made no references to place himself.]

Not so! She said she likes the Beatles and Bach, and he called her pretentious, which indicated he must know of both. So latest death could be 1964?

While I am adoring this book, I wish we got just a bit more about the courts. For example, I’m unsure what the punishment/test is in Violence. We didn’t even see a Shade. I want a bit more of the Underworld filled out, in the same way that the magic systems in this book are SO thorough.

Well, Babel made me cry, who why shouldn’t Katabasis, too? 😭

Not to be pedantic or anything, but is he using a pen or a pencil? Are they interchangeable in England?

[Even the plant turned its face toward the sun. Even the tiniest ant sought food; the brainless worm sought soil. It was all so easy for living creatures—all except people, except people like her, who had a knack for seeking only that which made them miserable.]

Everyone should read Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.