The author set out to create a warm hug in book form and this absolutely delivered. My only other reference for cozy fantasy is Legends and Lattes and I definitely think this one is better. There are just enough high stakes and very serious and significant world building events happening in the background of the story to give it a little more depth and variation than Legends and Lattes and that's the kind of cozy fantasy I want. Still highly cozy and endearing and just makes me smile, but also has significant substance and some events going on in the world that have me so fascinated to read the sequel. I discussed the novel on one of my livestreams for my Twitch Book Club! Check out the video here if you want my more in-depth thoughts: https://youtu.be/44hV4NJBr3Y

Actual rating: 3.75⭐

I tried to avoid most of the discourse about this book online and on Booktok because it was one of my most anticipated reads of 2025. The gist I got from the snippets that were unavoidable were:

-many people felt like this book was just the author flexing her knowledge and it read like a works cited page of someone's thesis -the author was trying to make readers feel inferior or less intelligent if they didn't understand each reference OR the online bookish community was making people feel that way and listing all the referenced texts you had to read prior to reading this book -the author is a great writer but not a great storyteller

I have to say I disagree with almost all of these takes. Were there lots of historical works referenced and complex ideas or philosophical theories discussed throughout the book? Absolutely, and I definitely wasn't familiar with probably about 40% of them. Did that take away from my enjoyment about the story and these deeply flawed but human characters all just trying to prove themselves and find their place in a world that often felt like it was rejecting them? No! People who agreed with some of these takes online I feel like needed to be reminded of the quote "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." The author is not out here trying to make you as a reader feel stupid by flexing her fancy degrees and vast breadth of knowledge. In fact, to me this book reads as a fairly scathing critique of higher academia and post-secondary education.

As someone who grew up in a family with various university professors, and many very similar to Alice, Peter, and Professor Grimes, I could not get over how accurately that archetype was portrayed. I grew up surrounded by people who believed academia was the noblest calling in the world, the best thing someone could do with their lives, and how their bodies were merely vessels or meat sacks to transport their brains around because the research was all that mattered. I have not related so hard to two characters in AGES because of this. In 2025, people like Grimes and all his attitudes about research and knowledge, both positive and negative, absolutely still exist and may even still run rampant at institutions around the world.

If people feel like they need to have perfect understanding of every minute detail that occurs in a book to enjoy it, then maybe this isn't for you. But hey I understood more of this novel then reading any of the books in the Locked Tomb series where I feel like I only understand 30% of what is going on at any given time. But great characters, rich and interesting settings, and raw human emotion put down elegantly on a page will endear me to any work of fiction, and I think both that series and Katabasis deliver on those.

What an absolute roller coaster of twists and turns! Absolutely loved it, I'm sure people were very entertained by the faces I was pulling on the subway while I listened to the final chapters. I also felt like I knew the characters so well and they were so three-dimensional. I was particularly attached to Eddie. Having different narrators voice their own distinctive characters in the audiobook really enhanced my experience reading this story. I thought the author's other novel The Guest List was good but this one blew it out of the water.

This felt like reading an Aesop's Fable or similar fairy tale with a clear message, but for adults. A little repetitive and obvious by the end with how often they repeated the takeaways the author wanted you to glean from the book. I had a bit of a slog in the back half, despite this being a short and fast read, but was pretty pleased with the ending. The voice of Jeremy Irons as the narrator also definitely added to my enjoyment of the book and probably gave it an entire star just for that. One thing I would love to know others' opinions on, I always hear/was told this is a book that embodies that feeling of wanderlust. People read this book and want to go on their own voyage to the pyramids or some other exotic destination or wonder of the world. But I feel like the end of the book was telling you to appreciate what you have in your own backyard, and how you might already be in the place you're supposed to be. Of course above all, this book is all about "journey before destination" and of course, "the world will go out of its' way to help you when you pursue your personal legend." Wonder what my personal legend is because I don't see the world going out of its' way to help me at the moment, so clearly I haven't found it!

I spent 88% of this book just shouting WHAT HAPPENED IN CROATIA???? And when we finally got that reveal it was a little underwhelming, I was like really? THAT'S the big incident? That is what keeps it a 4 rather than a 5 star. I swear I say this every time since I am on an Emily Henry binge read this summer (the audiobooks are just perfect to listen to during my dog walk), but this is probably in my top 2 of her books of all the ones I have read now. I think Funny Story just edges it out because I found Miles a teeny more endearing than Alex. Loved the travel element of this one though and the story unfolding across all these different cities and over so many years.