Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

97 reviews

bi_n_large's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Sexual assault, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, and Classism

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Blood, and Alcoholism

dianaschmidty's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Warning: this review doesn’t feature any spoilers, but it’s also really hard to talk about this book without spoilers, so I didn’t go into much detail.

This poor girl. As someone who deeply related to multiple of Effy’s experiences, Ava Reid perfectly encapsulated both how to be a survivor and how it feels to survive. As a female history major, I think that Ava Reid also perfectly encapsulated how it feels to academically survive in a world where it’s assumed that “scholarly” articles are more valid coming from a man. Watching Effy survive and learn to thrive by the end of the book was really special.
This was one of the most complex YA books I’ve ever read and I really enjoyed that. I hope that more English teachers add this to their reading lists. The world building was very complex and I would love to read more books set in this world! I also can’t wait to read more from Ava Reid!

Also, I absolutely adored Preston. The world needs more Prestons.

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperTeen, and Ava Reid for providing me access to this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexism, Child abuse, Death, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Kidnapping, Rape, Death of parent, and Grief

Minor: Sexual content

gwenythepooh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

4.75

I loved this book so much, the atmosphere, the how real the characters felt, the pain of realizing your hero is fallible. It got me so good. 

I was a little disappointed that I guessed the true author of Angharad so early on in the book but overall I didn’t mind as much as I might have as I was just glad at the ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Child abuse, and Mental illness

Moderate: Sexual assault

ponopond's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Mental illness, and Sexual assault

Minor: Kidnapping, Child abuse, and Abandonment

reneethelibrarian's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Misogyny

Minor: Child abuse, Drug abuse, and Gaslighting

supergirled's review against another edition

challenging 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Xenophobia

Minor: Death of parent

booksthatburn's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-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

5.0

Ava Reid is one of a small group of authors who I trust when reading a new story that deals with abuse and the precarity of survival. A STUDY IN DROWNING deals with institutional misogyny, sexual abuse, and societal dismissal of complaints about the same, all while telling a gripping story that delves into perception, unreality, and the difficulty of knowing what’s real or imagined when you’re dismissed out of hand as hysterical or crazy. Any summary or specific explanation that I could provide pales in comparison to just how fucking good this book is. It has a specific focus on abuse by men in power on young women who are technically women, and that they're legally adults but are in that strange zone where any signs of maturity are taken as indications that they knew exactly what they were getting into, but they can still be conveniently dismissed as children in an instant when it's convenient for their abusees. Even this thought is an inadequate paraphrasing of the way that this position is described in the text. 

A STUDY IN DROWNING is a story of uncertainty and a shaky sense of reality, figuring out how to name and shame abusers who use their power, position, and (often) gender to obscure and diminish their abuse, and to cultivate uncertainty as to whether they did what they did, and if they did it, if it even was wrong. The fantastical setting allows for a recursive reinforcement of themes of decay, drowning, and rot as the specter of the Fairy King is invoked, threatened, and manifested in turn to build a story where the water is certain, death is inevitable, but drowning is slow. In that gap is room for denial and obfuscation as the water rises.

Effy is obsessed with the works of a particular author, and of his novel, Angharad, in particular. It tells the story of the Fairy King seducing his human bride from the perspective of that girl. Effy has the text largely memorized, and many lines in it are deeply meaningful to her, whispered as talismans against the sexism of her daily life. In a country where she has to go to the architecture college because no women are allowed in the literature college, the idea that one of the most famous writers in her country would have written this book with such a careful and nuanced understanding of a female perspective is deeply meaningful and inspiring to her. The college bars women because of misogynist nonsense about their minds being unable to handle understanding or producing great works of literature. Though she is admitted at the architecture college, Effy is the only female student there. The few girls in her dorm who are studying at the music college where they are admitted in greater numbers. 

At first, Effy has a xenophobic reaction to learning that a boy from an enemy nation was admitted to study at the literature college at the same time she was denied because of her gender. She ends up meeting him, and it turns into a rivals to lovers scenario where they work together to get around the sexist institution and call abusers to account. Gradually it becomes clear as Effy is able to think and process more specifically that one of the professors abused her. She feels unable to go to anyone for help, or even necessarily to be certain in herself, that it was wrong. The other students assume she used her body to get where she is, that somehow she doesn't deserve to be in the same halls as them.

A STUDY IN DROWNING has cemented Ava Reid on my must-read list for her consistently nuanced handling of themes of abuse and coercion in ways that leverage the strengths of fantasy to help deal with traumatic realities surrounding sexism and abuses of power. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism and Misogyny

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Xenophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Bullying, Child abuse, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Death of parent, and Death

Minor: Pedophilia, Drug use, Mental illness, Cursing, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Murder, and War

ttumbletree's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Misogyny, Child abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, and Sexism

paracosim's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

I found this book disappointing in a couple of ways. The pace was a bit too slow, the characters had little to no connection to each other in any way that mattered (unlike in The Wolf and the Woodsman), and the worldbuilding felt too shallow. The writing was gorgeous, which earns it points; but I’d guessed the entire plot by page 45 and was unsurprised with each reveal. I disliked how all the reveals happen, as well. Very dissatisfying book overall. I wouldn’t read it again. And it feels mean to say it, but sometimes I wanted to grab Effy by the shoulders and shake her a little. Why is she nonstop crying over some dead old white guy?? Like girl get a grip, he’s just some dude

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual assault, Misogyny, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Child abuse, Alcohol, Animal death, and Death

Minor: War

katyakat's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Alcoholism, Blood, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, and War