Penny Smith’s Reviews > Katabasis > Status Update

This is beetlejuice dark academia with the dry British wit that I love about Emily Wilde. It’s whimsical in a way I didn’t expect from a book about Hell. So far it’s giving absolutely everything to me

It is so hard to put this book down

I love the rock climbing imagery. I love the fact that Alice has this nihilistic self destructive love for rock climbing, that she feels safety and euphoria in the feeling of falling. The comfort of death instead of the fear of it. It basically describes her journey towards a successful academic career. If she makes it, great. If she doesn’t make it through hell, she’ll be embraced by the sweet release of death

Have Alice and Peter hooked up before?

The writing style and Alice’s voice is reminding me so much of Emily Wilde. Which of course means I love it. And also I’m realizing as I’m writing this that she might be called Alice as a reference to Alice in Wonderland. After all, going through a portal to hell is not very unlike Alice going to Wonderland.

This also goes into the theme of choosing death over your losing destiny. But in this case it’s choosing death over losing your privilege

This is a fascinating moral conundrum: the idea that someone might be against reincarnation if they came from a privileged life because they don’t want to roll the dice on not being born privileged. That’s insane