15.4k reviews for:

A Study in Drowning

Ava Reid

3.86 AVERAGE

dark mysterious tense slow-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

I hated this book from page 1 but kept reading because work was slow and it was the only book I brought with me. 

Idk why so many details needed to be repeated so often. Most of my memory of this book is that she was the only girl in the architecture college, which was the second most prestigious at the university, and she took a pink pill. 

Like holy crap I could have made a drinking game out of how often those 3 statements got repeated. 

Everything about this book drove me nuts. The wind could blow and she would be on the verge of a panic attack.
Nothing truly actually made sense. Town on the bottom of the cliff. Got it. Go up the cliff and the roads are flooding??? What?

I tried so hard to like this book. The main plot wasn’t terrible, but it was obvious, therefore super aggravating that it took 8 years for the characters to figure it out. 

For the whole book to only span a month is just.. why?? Why was FMC such a terrible person???

WHY
emotional hopeful 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
dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The academic, mystery and folklore side of this was fascinating and intriguing, and did create an overall compelling read. I enjoyed the characters, their growth and interaction, and the general vibes of the story. 

However, I feel like certain elements and themes went under explored and weren't properly exicuted in a way that felt satisfying, such as the national conflict and elements of xenophobia. 

I found the magic elements dissapointing overall. It felt like the book tried too hard to get you to dismiss it, until it was right in front of you, rather than let you draw your own conclusions. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

not really anything, a truly mediocre book

don’t know if I would reread but a really surprisingly strong message and focus on how women are presented in society and how much men fucking suck 
adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious 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: Complicated
adventurous dark mysterious 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: Yes

This is my second Ava Reid book (my first being Juniper and Thorn) and I really enjoyed it. Reid really gets fairy tales. She understands why we're drawn to them. How we make meaning out of them. The importance of rules and wits and symbols. Real lyrical and atmospheric stuff. Fits right in with my love of guillermo del toro and princess tutu lol

The literary discussion in this book also really worked for me. Usually I don't care much for epigraphs but I found the different in-universe literary criticisms to be delightful.

I did have a couple problems. Part of it felt rushed to me. I don't read a lot of YA anymore, so I don't know if that's a personal issue. And the romance felt a bit perfunctory for all the rivals-to-lovers marketing I've seen stressed. It doesn't really bother me though. To me, it seems like the worlds of Reid's heroines' are harsh and cruel places and the boys they love serve to give them something gentle.
dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This was one of those books I saw being discussed on bookstagram*, and picked up on a whim. I was unaware this was a YA title, it just comes across as a non-spicy romantasy, which isn’t a bad thing. 

The plot of Ava Reid’s A Study in Drowning concerns a young student, Effy Safre — intense and eager to prove herself — who gets the opportunity to visit the home of the deceased national poet, a writer whose epic novel is to this fantasy world as the Ulysses is to Ireland. When she reaches the remote estate she encounters an academic rival, Preston Héloury — a handsome boy from the neighboring country — there on a similar errand. This is where the complications arise: the house is rotting away and decrepit, and guarded by the creepy son of the late great writer. He is alternately solicitous and extremely suspicious and unhelpful. Our heroine, while initially cautious around Preston, gradually combines forces with him as they review the late author’s papers and discover strong evidence that not only is the house about to collapse, but the great author’s work that she so adores might have been written by another.

The epic work that Effy is so obsessed with is named Angharad, and is about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King and then destroys him. As the novel progresses, our heroes begin to suspect their epic tale is less a work of the imagination, and more an instruction manual on how to protect yourself — and by extension their world — from the Fairy King, who (like Sauron, Voldemort, and so many other embodiments of evil) may not be as dead (or purely fictional) as thought. 

Heroine and hero are slightly ill-matched, or maybe it’s more that Effy is the considerably more-vivid character through whom we view everything. While Preston is less active, he nonetheless stands out as being the only decent, honorable, and pleasant male character Effy appears to have ever met in her life! Effy appears to be suffering from PTSD from two sources: a lifetime of strange and terrifying visions of the Fairy King and what is implied was a sexual assault by a faculty member at her university. (Female scholars are very rare in this world.) This is only lightly touched on, which seems odd as I’ve always thought that YA is if-anything more willing to address sexuality than mainstream fiction. Effy and Preston work in the context of the story, and given that a sequel is clearly in the works, we end this book with every indication that their relationship will be better balanced in the future.

The villain being a Fairy King (and therefore ineffable, inscrutable, magical, etc.) frees the plot from being overly beholden to logic and basic laws of physics. We have a house built on towering cliffs, whose basement is nonetheless full of seawater, for one otherwise head-scratching oddity. This is a book which is heavy on vibes: gothic, moody, and occasionally horrific, but it gets away with it because the writing is quite evocative, and we do learn early on that Effy may not be quite “of this world” with her visions and intense re-reading of Angharad. This is not to say that the novel is light on plot; Effy and Preston embark on a twisty and satisfying journey, both literally and figuratively. I enjoyed the gradual revelations of the magic system and true circumstances of Angharad‘s origin, but I don’t want to rehash the plot and overly spoiler the book for anyone else. The vibes, evocative prose, and considered world-building coalesce into page-turner that demands your full attention!

Anyway, I enjoyed A Study in Drowning and will doubtless search out the sequel, A Theory of Dreaming, as soon as it comes out. 

* Yes, probably more on #booktok, but I don’t spend much time there.

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