How far would you go to get a recommendation letter? Alice Law would go to Hell and back. So would Peter. Both Alice and Peter are post-grad students whose professor and advisor died. He’s the best in the field, and a recommendation letter from him would guarantee any job they want. But he’s dead, and they only have to traverse hell to get it. They take a Dante-inspired trip to try to find their professor. They don’t know which level he must be on, so they have to go through them one by one. As they go through, we learn more about both of them and their professor, and sadly, he is exactly the type of person you would expect him to be. The story is mostly narrated by Alice. She has always been the best in her class until she came to Cambridge. She meets Peter, who is the golden boy. I like that we don’t shy away from her morally gray personality. She does some questionable things to get what she wants, but she is not a bad person. Like most women, she has to navigate a male-dominated world. Does that excuse her of some of what she does, or at least tries to do? In the end, she gets the catharsis she needs, and while we don’t know what will happen to her in the future. She is definitely in a better headspace than she was at the beginning of the book. I generally enjoyed this book. It did take a while to get into it, but once I did, it was a fast read. I am sure that a lot of people in academia will identify with her struggles but for me, it was just entertaining. ,
2 Women, So Many Books 