Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“You're like something out of a nightmare."
And you, Lorelei thought despairingly, are resplendent.
A Dark and Drowning Tide takes you on a thrilling adventure through its own wonderful world. The story is a tragically beautiful one. However much the fantasy genre was present, it felt very realistic and down to earth. It was a book filled with magic but the characters endings didn’t have a drop of that magic. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book!
adventurous
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think this ended up at a 3.5ish read for me. It had the unfortunate timing of reading it while in a pretty big reading slump for me (with this and some other books) and that clouded my feelings on it a little bit, but I also think I had a little bit different expectations going in. I thought this was a bit more of a dark academia fantasy novel, and it’s not really. It’s about scholars, but it’s def not dark academia. I also thought it was more of a romance than it actually was. Yes, there is a romance in here, but it’s really more of a Lorelei character study type of thing with a heavy dash of the romance with Sylvia helping that growth along. I still enjoyed it, but I wanted to like it a little more than I did, especially as it was my aardvark pick for the month, and when I buy things without reading them first, it always adds to the pressure to like it a lot.
All that said, I enjoyed it. It was my first novel by this author and is def check out another.
All that said, I enjoyed it. It was my first novel by this author and is def check out another.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was amazing. I love all the German folklore and language use here. There is also so much symbolism with antisemitism. I truly love how much research and knowledge was put into this story.
I also love the romance. It was the perfect level of spice. The plot was engaging. The enemies definitely hated each other.
I really liked this book. I can’t recommend it enough, especially when there is a lack of wlw books out there.
I also love the romance. It was the perfect level of spice. The plot was engaging. The enemies definitely hated each other.
I really liked this book. I can’t recommend it enough, especially when there is a lack of wlw books out there.
Allison Saft kissed the brick before pummeling me with it and then properly bandaged me afterwards— so we’re even. 5/5 stars highly recommended. BEAUTIFUL writing!
somehow this book is both set in a fantasy land and also 20th century germany. the main character is jewish but actually she’s not because the author has just changed some of the names of things and kept all the traditions the same. there are also fantasy nazis. there was a fantasy kristallnacht. this book just floors me. somehow it manages to drag and not really deliver the things its summary promised.
at least the nazi guy died
at least the nazi guy died
So I have this thing with dark academia stories, and that is that I find very few of them actually have anything to do with academia. Like sure maybe the setting is in a university or the characters are scholars but the plot and story itself has little research in it.
In this book the characters are all scholars in different fields. They are apparently the best (? I would assume?) in their specialties and are chosen to go on an expedition to find a legendary spring that can give the worthy like super magic powers. All the characters have for the past years been collecting data in order to posit theories on where this spring can be found. Our main character, Lorelei, is a folklorist, which means she analyzes different versions of this myth in order to find that kernel of truth.
This seems like an excellent setup for like finding clues and combining the data from different scientific field in order to find the goal—like a treasure hunt right?
Well wrong. We never hear anything about any data anyone has collected, nevermind their conclusions. Literally the leader of the expedition in the beginning goes „It’s here“ and that’s it. Lorelei is confused with this conclusion because her findings don’t support this. Do we learn what her findings pointed to? Or why she feels like this is not the case? No. So they get to the area where they assume this spring is, and still noone knows where until they here the story again from a local – which gives them the info of where to go next. But like, why didn’t Lorelei, THE FOLKLORIST, who’s entire job it was to gather as many of these myths as possible, know this one??
This always disappoints me when I read dark academia because in the end it’s always more style over substance. It’s more fore the ~vibes~
There are other things I didn’t really like. Lorelei the main character was just really mean. Like, I love a good grumpy/sunshine romance but grumpy does not equal being needlessly nasty. Her love interest Sylvia (the sunshine) never really does anything to inspire the amount of just mean-ness in the text.... possibly there was some backstory from while they were studying? But then, if it’s never shown it doesn’t really count. There is no real progression for them either. It’s exactly the same throughout the book up unitl the very end when Lorelei is suddenly like oh yea ily. It would have been so much better to have the work together the entire trip and then get closer or smth.
Another thing about Lorelei was that I didn’t quite get her motivation. So Lorelei is a Yeva which was hella Jewish coded, like with even the same words occasionally --like they have a Rabbi and the sit Shiva when someone has passed. That felt like a weird mix of fantasy religion and real religion mash up^^ But thats fine. --The parts that made me care most about Lorelei was when she was thinking or talking about her experiences coming from that culture. Sadly that was all in the past. It would have been nice to actually see her interact with her family in the present. That would have made everything more grounded and maybe shown Lorelei in a different light when she’s with family and not with the other ppl who look down on her and her people. Might have made her more sympathetic and then show why she wants out so badly or maybe even what her family thinks of what she’s doing. Do they encourage her? Are they scared for her? Who knows!
Anyway, because the Yeva basically live in a Ghetto and are not allowed outside alone, Lorelei became a Folklorist instead of a naturalist which is (as she says) what she really wants to do. But then once she’s out on the expedition she is endlessly annoyed at everything she encounters. Again that would have been an excellent opportunity to show Lorelei in a different light and maybe give her something in common with Sylvia (who is in fact a naturalist and is very excited by all the things she encounters). But no. Grouchy the whole time.
There is some stuff I liked – the lore and world were in general interesting. However I’m not sure how I feel about the end… It felt pro-colonialism-y? The setting is basically that the main country has just colonized all these neighboring countries. And all the characters are basically royalty from those states. Which...is bad. Like just in general. But then,the “villain” basically was the one who was fighting for their countries independence. And all the good guys were like “eh, this is stable this seems fine” which ya know sure is a way to go but seemed weird. Especially as it didn’t really go into any more detail on anything. Like I get you don’t want more war but like the concerns are absolutely valid and you do have to kind of deal with that.
There is also no change in the status of the Yeva… they are still living in the Ghetto and are still discriminated against at the end. Only Lorelei now has explicit permission to leave and work outside. Soooo… yeah. Cool cool cool. Good for you Lorelei. (And agin no idea what her family/community thinks or feels about that...)
So yeah I wasn’t a big fan...it was just fine and at least fairly short lol
In this book the characters are all scholars in different fields. They are apparently the best (? I would assume?) in their specialties and are chosen to go on an expedition to find a legendary spring that can give the worthy like super magic powers. All the characters have for the past years been collecting data in order to posit theories on where this spring can be found. Our main character, Lorelei, is a folklorist, which means she analyzes different versions of this myth in order to find that kernel of truth.
This seems like an excellent setup for like finding clues and combining the data from different scientific field in order to find the goal—like a treasure hunt right?
Well wrong. We never hear anything about any data anyone has collected, nevermind their conclusions. Literally the leader of the expedition in the beginning goes „It’s here“ and that’s it. Lorelei is confused with this conclusion because her findings don’t support this. Do we learn what her findings pointed to? Or why she feels like this is not the case? No. So they get to the area where they assume this spring is, and still noone knows where until they here the story again from a local – which gives them the info of where to go next. But like, why didn’t Lorelei, THE FOLKLORIST, who’s entire job it was to gather as many of these myths as possible, know this one??
This always disappoints me when I read dark academia because in the end it’s always more style over substance. It’s more fore the ~vibes~
There are other things I didn’t really like. Lorelei the main character was just really mean. Like, I love a good grumpy/sunshine romance but grumpy does not equal being needlessly nasty. Her love interest Sylvia (the sunshine) never really does anything to inspire the amount of just mean-ness in the text.... possibly there was some backstory from while they were studying? But then, if it’s never shown it doesn’t really count. There is no real progression for them either. It’s exactly the same throughout the book up unitl the very end when Lorelei is suddenly like oh yea ily. It would have been so much better to have the work together the entire trip and then get closer or smth.
Another thing about Lorelei was that I didn’t quite get her motivation. So Lorelei is a Yeva which was hella Jewish coded, like with even the same words occasionally --like they have a Rabbi and the sit Shiva when someone has passed. That felt like a weird mix of fantasy religion and real religion mash up^^ But thats fine. --The parts that made me care most about Lorelei was when she was thinking or talking about her experiences coming from that culture. Sadly that was all in the past. It would have been nice to actually see her interact with her family in the present. That would have made everything more grounded and maybe shown Lorelei in a different light when she’s with family and not with the other ppl who look down on her and her people. Might have made her more sympathetic and then show why she wants out so badly or maybe even what her family thinks of what she’s doing. Do they encourage her? Are they scared for her? Who knows!
Anyway, because the Yeva basically live in a Ghetto and are not allowed outside alone, Lorelei became a Folklorist instead of a naturalist which is (as she says) what she really wants to do. But then once she’s out on the expedition she is endlessly annoyed at everything she encounters. Again that would have been an excellent opportunity to show Lorelei in a different light and maybe give her something in common with Sylvia (who is in fact a naturalist and is very excited by all the things she encounters). But no. Grouchy the whole time.
There is some stuff I liked – the lore and world were in general interesting. However I’m not sure how I feel about the end… It felt pro-colonialism-y? The setting is basically that the main country has just colonized all these neighboring countries. And all the characters are basically royalty from those states. Which...is bad. Like just in general. But then,the “villain” basically was the one who was fighting for their countries independence. And all the good guys were like “eh, this is stable this seems fine” which ya know sure is a way to go but seemed weird. Especially as it didn’t really go into any more detail on anything. Like I get you don’t want more war but like the concerns are absolutely valid and you do have to kind of deal with that.
There is also no change in the status of the Yeva… they are still living in the Ghetto and are still discriminated against at the end. Only Lorelei now has explicit permission to leave and work outside. Soooo… yeah. Cool cool cool. Good for you Lorelei. (And agin no idea what her family/community thinks or feels about that...)
So yeah I wasn’t a big fan...it was just fine and at least fairly short lol