Reviews - A Study in Drowning

15.3k reviews for:

A Study in Drowning

Ava Reid

3.86 AVERAGE

thereadingfish's review against another edition

3.0

emotional mysterious slow-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

alissa28's review against another edition

4.5

dark inspiring mysterious medium-paced

isaballer69's review against another edition

3.0

Cute scholar boy meets annoying gatekeeping crybaby bigoted girl

fawnhotel's review against another edition

2.0

i started off really enjoying this book but it, unfortunately, unraveled to be an extremely repetitive and surface leveled story.

i felt like every page mentioned:

effy's beauty
effy's fragility
effy crying
fairytales
her pink pills

it got so incredibly boring at some point. the big reveal at the end felt both underserved and underwhelming.

this is supposed to be feminist tale but nearly 50% of the book she is yearning and/or actually being saved/coddled by a man. she feels no safety or strength with herself, alone. she needs preston there. his advocacy for her pushes her forward and that aspect combined with the fact that effy cried at everything, and i do mean everything, just made for a stereotypical damsel in distress tale and i ultimately did not like it.

i'm not even going to touch on effy's blatant racism towards the mmc that's ultimately summarized as her "being a pest" and the mmc's dumbass saying "it's ok i like being challenged :D moving water is healthy"

a study in two dumb bitches telling each other "exactlyyy"

bexbringsbooks's review against another edition

4.0

This was beautiful. And melancholy. And incredibly clear and incredibly perplexing at the same time. And even having finished it, I don’t actually know if the narrator was reliable or not. I’ve heard it compared to the movie Labyrinth, and while there are some motifs I think they have in common, if I were making a comparison I would probably say a mix of Jane Eyre, the Letters of Enchantment duology, and the poetry of Yeats.

I don’t know how to feel about the fact that we got answers to pretty much everything, but at the same time feel like we got no answers at all.

This will not be a book for everyone, but for the right reader, I definitely think it will be one that stays with you.