Katabasis

R.F. Kuang's Katabasis is an intellectually staggering achievement that occasionally forgets to be a story. Set in a 1980s Cambridge where magic is as rigorous (and soul-crushing) as a PhD defense, the book excels at satirizing the "hell" of academia. The descent into the underworld felt like a vivid, terrifying metaphor for burnout and the cost of ambition.