Emiel’s Reviews > Katabasis > Status Update
Emiel
is 50% done
This book... it is so concerned with appearing smart. Nonstop academic name-dropping, Ready Player One style, but for debate club nerds instead of Funko Pop nerds. It is quite the achievement to make hell this drab. It is hell. Stop talking about formal logic. She pisses me off so much. She is smart, but the book is not. It is all aesthetics without substance. Show me something clever instead of telling me! Aaaaaaaa
— May 20, 2026 01:14AM
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Emiel’s Previous Updates
Emiel
is 37% done
The plot is engaging, I like the unapologetic snobbery, and this certainly has less of an over-explaining problem compared to her other books, but what is this dry ass writing? How are you citing Susanna Clarke, Vladimir Nabokov, and Kazuo Ishiguro as influences and then write such soulless, sanitized prose? It comes across as shameless pandering to her Swiftie-like audience: simplify and it will sell, and so it does
— May 14, 2026 08:14AM
