Katabasis - R.F. Kuang
After I read Babel I had quite a lot to say about it. That isn't the case for Katabasis.
This is aggressively fine. I definitely enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Babel, mainly because it doesn't have quite so many major flaws as that book does. And where that book completely falls apart in its final act, Katabasis is fairly consistent throughout (though much like Babel I think it's at its strongest in the opening sections as we learn about this world that we're inhabiting).
There are two problems with Katabasis that made it a bit of a slog to get through for me. The first is that much like Babel it often feels very derivative of other works. Where Babel often read like poorly-disguised Harry Potter fan-fiction, Katabasis wears a few influences very clearly on its sleeve, in parts feeling like Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and at other times feeling like Garth Nix's Sabriel. I think there's also some His Dark Materials influence here, too, especially with regard to the lands of the dead that we see at the end of The Amber Spyglass.
The main problem, though, is that it's simply boring for large chunks of the book. We're on a journey through Hell, and very little happens. It's hugely anti-climactic, especially after how strong the promise of the opening section of the book is. The romance at the heart of the book, too, falls a little flat - these are two characters who literally go to hell and back for each other, and I never once believed that they actually cared about each other.
It's a shame, really. I desperately wanted to love both Babel and Katabasis - thematically they sound like exactly the sort of thing I'd be into, I love the settings that Kuang situates her stories in, I love her ideas, and I think her writing is often very good. Unfortunately it all just fails to come together for me, and that's disappointing.