Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - A Study in Drowning

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

419 reviews

sherylkay's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

laurenmiller100's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious

2.25

Characters: 2
Atmosphere/Setting: 6
Writing Style: 5
Plot: 3
Intrigue: 4
Logic/Relationships: 3
Enjoyment: 3

I really wanted to like this but it drove me nuts. The answer to the mystery is right in front of the protagonists faces and they just completely look past it. The end is very tell not show which I find infuriating.

The fairy king being real is just about the stupidest way this could have ended. We spend so much time going back and forth. I thought it would’ve been so cool and subversive to have the fairy king not be real and have the protagonist overcome her traumas. But no.

Content Warnings

beccaglasserbaker's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

witcheep's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

2.5

I can see why so many people have enjoyed this book, but to me, it is a miss.

This is very dark story due to the worldbuilding! The world the characters live in is very misogynistic, and the main characters find it hard to fight against, which made the reading experience very uncomfortable – as it should. However, the plot didn't offer enough either mystery or romance, so besides uncomfortable, the book was also boring. The hints towards the mystery made the ending too predictable.

Content Warnings

just_emem's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Content Warnings

metro_gnome's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have mixed emotions with this book. For 72% (thank you Libby) it had me. The conflict between Effy and Preston worked. And there are a handful of lines that really shot through me...but my GOD what was that sex scene? Completely threw me off!

And that's where things started to unravel. I feel like there was so much work done to make us as readers doubt Effy. But little was done to PROVE her experience was real. And there are some continuity issues about who wrote what....if you know what I mea .

Content Warnings

silly_snail's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense 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

3.0

dragged soooo much at the end. Unfortunately I didn't care about the characters at all, Preston felt so flat and their romance ?? 0 chemistry. Effy hated him at first out of (straight up) racism, and then fell in love just as fast. She treated him so poorly, confronting him for no reasons it was so annoying. Preston would just let her use him as a doormat, before deciding to team up with her ??
Other than that. I was hooked for 70% of the book, I loved the fairy-tales, the myths, the gothic elements. Definitely don't regret reading it, despite it's flaws.

Content Warnings

ambermoony's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

3.0

okay first of all I thought the audiobook narrator was great, I really liked her performance. I really liked the setting! I thought the worldbuilding was pretty solid and the descriptions of all the locations were nice and evocative. I think the SA storyline was well-handled for the most part.

The romance was sweet enough but felt quite rushed, or maybe the writing just didn't give the best idea of the passage of time.

every time either of the characters professed that they'd wanted each other for such a long time I was just like. it has been like a couple weeks at most what are you talking about.

The prose is quite lovely but it does start to feel repetitive and kind of tedious at a point. There are only so many sea metaphors and similes you can make and ways to describe the exact same emotions over and over I suppose.

I don't always mind when a story is predictable but here it largely makes the characters come off as frustratingly stupid when I'm supposed to believe they're both clever.

The fact that Myrrdin's wife wrote the book is obvious from the moment the question of authorship is raised, okay, but the way they completely dismiss the widow and never seem to deem her worthy of looking into, that the possibility the woman in the photos could be his wife never seems to even cross their minds, that they never consider, especially after Effie's heartbreak over the possibility that a misogynist wrote the book, that maybe a woman wrote Angharad- it is all just kind of ludicrous. it could have tied perfectly into the themes of women being ignored and not listened to or believed- and how even the protagonists themselves fall into that trap!!- but it's never really addressed that way and the main characters are never criticised for it. And I just think that's a waste that makes the twist feel even more poorly executed.

stories where the protagonist is doubting their perception of reality can make for a tricky balance to strike. in this case I wasn't sure whether or not the author wanted the reader to genuinely doubt that supernatural elements were real

, but for me it was always obvious that they were. I think Effie's struggle between believing in what she was seeing vs what other people told her was real worked very well early on but it got to a point where she was ping-ponging back and forth between total belief and complete (and sometimes seemingly quite baseless) doubt got to feel a little frustrating and, again, repetitive

.

Overall this book started off promising and I certainly don't think it's bad, but at a certain point I was just kind of waiting for it to be over :(

Content Warnings

p2evavaras's review against another edition

Go to review page

hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

I really-really liked this story! It was comforting for my soul and the characters were well constructed, even tho it's quite a short book I felt like there was something to be learned about them at every page-turn.

Effy was quite clearly mentally troubled but I liked the author's representation of her anxieties, as in they felt true to life. I also loved the small romance between Preston and Effy, it worked great as a subplot and gave the story a more lighthearted tone, also their banter was -chefs kiss-!!

The only reason why the book didn't get 5 stars from me is the very-very ending - it wasnt a bad ending by any means but something about it left me feeling like it was a tad bit rushed and somehow didn't feel as well thought-out and put-together as the rest of the book.

Content Warnings

alwu283's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional 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

4.25

Content Warnings

More...