This is the third novel of R. F. Kuang I've read (after being impressed by the The Poppy Wars, first volume, but also emotionally so exhausted I didn't read the rest of the trilogy, amused and captivated in an emotionally distant way by Yellowface, and turned so much by Babel that I only read the first twenty pages or so and then gave up), and I think my favourite so far. There is academic satire but also genuine emotion throughout, there is great ambition epically realised (i.e. writing a trip to the underworld in the grand tradition of all the obvious suspects, but specifically one that reflects the present), and the horror parts hit home in a way that feels not derivative but specific for this particular version. (The novel is set in a universe where magic is real, but isn't concerned with how this altered history or not, just what it means you can study it at university.) Our main character, Alice Law, is the kind of messy, complicated and morally ambiguous (and not in a "nice" way) woman the author specializes in, though for me personally preferable because I had the sense of the narrative being on board with what it was saying about Alice's strengths and weaknesses through her initially very skewered perspective. Also she had a genuine learning process through that trip through the Underworld, and... but that would be spoilery.

( Spoilers realize the Underworld is modelled on a British University )


Also improving my week: This trailer for Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein: