Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

164 reviews

ajrbrennan's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kghunter's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.0

“[…]the truth was very costly at times. How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you.”


If you were to remove all of the sentences in this book that described one of the characters blushing, it would probably be about half its current length. I don’t know if this is just a more common experience of fair skinned people or what but I think a group-read of this in which everyone took a shot every time someone blushes would be a pretty fun way to get absolutely shittered with your friends if they also happen to be into horny fantasy mystery novels that involve a lot of quivering and clenched fists. 

Blushing and quivering aside this was a truly enjoyable read. Reid is brilliant at capturing the “dark academia” imagery and I loved how she used such a beautifully painted, fantastical storyline to examine themes of misogyny, victim-shaming, childhood trauma, and isolation, as well as gender-based violence, bigotry, and oppression. As a reader who originally chose to read this book to scratch my annually occurring wintertime dark academia itch, its depth and sincerity came as a pleasant surprise.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

eedle_cacleberry's review

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

How is this book getting so much hate? Someone get these romantasy and colleen hoover fans out of here

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

samsbookcorner's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Genuinely my #1 complaint about this book as that I can't read the next one until next year!! I always struggle to find a reason to annotate books, but with this one I truly couldn't put the pen down. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

tinyfox72's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Strong dark academia vibes. It did feel at times that it was written with many unnecessarily big words to convince you that the characters are very smart. 

Reasons for lower score: 
Pacing was a bit all over the place.
Ending was disappointing, and kind of defeated the point of the mystery.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

boyles_book_nook's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Predictable at times, though well written! The world building felt a bit slow at times. I loved Effy and her journey to find her truth.. and others! 

Closed door romance

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kat42's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I really wanted to like this book and am sad I didn't. The one thing it did well, in my opinion, was tackle the misogyny in academia. The abuse women face at the hands of men, the assumption that women cannot compete intellectually with men, and
the common occurrence of men stealing women's work.
I also loved the setting of a crumbling house falling into the sea. 
However, the characters and romance were dull to me. Effy's prejudice is somehow okay now that she's fucked Preston? Also the sexual abuse she has dealt with is pretty key to her character, but then when she has consensual sex with Preston, the word Reid chose to describe it was "assault"??? My other issue is that everything happened so easily for the characters at the end. The conflict gets resolved in like two pages, and someone literally just tells Effy and Preston all the answers to everything instead of the two of them having to piece it together on their own.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kelseydaffodil's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

5.0

"Why was it always girls whose forms could not be trusted? Everything could be taken away from them in an instant."

wow. WOW. what a book. i loved so much of this. the vibes, the setting, how it was clearly not in our world yet held some of our own things (cameras, cars, phones). the fact that the fairy king was not romanticised, not like other books. the constant guessing. preston. oh wow, what a sweet guy. exactly what effy needed to ground her. and effy. what an incredible protagonist. i loved her so much.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

thegabscast's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

allisonsmith120's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious medium-paced

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings