Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - A Study in Drowning

To be honest, I went into this book blind with little idea of what was in store for me other than the knowledge that this was considered a dark academia book. Obviously, with most dark academia, a certain level of darkness is expected. Ava Reid 100% delivered that, but in keeping it YA made it what I would consider a suitable level of thematic darkness that a young adult audience would grasp.

Effy Effy Effy Effy — is there ever a more tortured character who has never been dealt a lucky draw of cards in her life? I will admit for the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the book I truly was grasping for straws trying to figure out how things were ever going to brighten up for her. By the halfway, I was convinced that Ava Reid was going to Addie LaRue her and force her to end up with the Fairy King. Although it would be a bit optimistic to say that her ending is an incandescently happy one (she most certainly has an arduous journey ahead of her), her outcome was far better than I initially expected. I was very pleased with the ending, truthfully.

My bad boy academic Preston Héloury was nothing short of the perfect MMC for this book in that he was an excellent companion to Effy’s FMC but never, ever overshadowed her. Nor did he dim her light or distract from her story. In fact, he was a necessary building block of her story by (in part) marking the transformation from terrorized, drowned Effy to her reborn, swimming Euphemia. Preston was the perfect companion. While I could see what he brought for Effy, I did find it a bit difficult to see what she brought growth-wise to his character. They do have a lot of pride & prejudice vibes with Preston in the Elizabethan pride and Effy getting off on the wrong food with Preston in Darcian fashion. She did do a good job of calling him out on his erudite pride.

The Gothic setting of this book??! Creeptastic & well executed. There was not an overt amount of detail spent on the world building here, but rather just enough to get the points across. I did sometimes wonder what this world would look like on a map, but the locations were simply not important enough that I thought it required one. Overall, I loved the concept of the Bottom Hundred and its stark contrast to the north. Hiraeth was serving if Davy Jones had a house instead of the Black Pearl. The Fairy King, although not the only villain here (there are so many!), was fantastically designed.

Overall, my only gripe and the reason this book gets a 4.5 from me instead of a 5.0 was the hasty wrapping up of the plot. There was soooo much build up for the first 3/4 of the novel that by the time the storm hits, you’re expecting a huge drawn out ending. But as soon as the Fairy King is out of the picture, it felt like a race to wrap up this book and move on. Angharad’s story was absolutely vital to the entire structure of the novel, but her telling her story was more or less confined to about one chapter of the book. I definitely think her character could’ve been fleshed out and the reveal of her story and role in it be played out a bit more fluently. I would’ve loved to have seen more Effy & Angharad interaction, and most certainly some Preston & Angharad interaction as Preston struggles with this newfound knowledge (can we call it belief?) that the supernatural is real.

Anyways, I took an incredible amount of words more than usual to say that this was great.

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artemisx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

3.5

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trynaread's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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stina_gates's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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chelbawamba's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.75

This is my second attempt with this author and sadly I don’t think I can be convinced to try again. Ava Reid relies heavily on simile and metaphor, to a point of excessiveness, does a lot of telling instead of showing, and everything happens to this main character “suddenly” or “for some reason.” Even when the reason was obvious to me as a reader, it happened “for some reason.”

Overall, the concept of the story was interesting, but the way it was executed was extremely predictable. I knew early on what most of the reveals at the end were going to be. In my opinion, there is a fine line between good foreshadowing and offering too much too early on.

A personal pet peeve of mine is when characters speak about each other as if they’ve known each other for a long time when it’s only been a few days, for example: saying things like “he’s always been kind to me,” or “I had never seen him this flustered” when the character only knew the other person for maybe a collective three hours. This happened frequently in the first half of the book.

I didn’t not enjoy it, but I also didn’t enjoy it. Would not necessarily recommend it, but it had its moments and kept me engaged through the end.

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booklizard_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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grace_koalateareads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

“didn’t all drownings begin with a harmless dribble of water?”

A Study In Drowning by Ava Reid was a mysterious, magical, dark academia read. I went in not knowing much about the story, only that it was a fairly hyped book, and I wanted to jump in the bandwagon. I loved architecture of the world building, how it could have been set in the past or present, with mentions of cars, phones and televisions, as well as typewriters, letters and candlelight.

“Her only enemy was the sea.”

It was definitely worth the read, however, it fell slightly flat for me. The predictability of the plot was a big factor, I like having a few more twists and turns to keep me engaged. Also the characters didn’t feel as real as I would have liked. They definitely had backstories and a “life” off the page, but there was just something about Effy and Preston that irked me slightly. Still a solid four star read though.

“The trick of any good lie is just finding an audience who wants to believe it.”

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tired_cicada's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

There is something to say about a world and a magic system that feel lived in. And if there's one thing that I can appreciate it's an author who trusts her readers to be smart enough to figure things out. Reid doesn't waste unnecessary time on flowery exhibition about how her world works, you just get thrown into it and you sink or swim. Personally, I like that a lot. I don't need an author to hold my hand the entire time and so would an author just says "here you go, figure it out" I just know I'm going to have a great time. Particularly if it's a standalone that needs to be good on its own merit.

I think that this is magical realism at its finest. The world in "A Study in Drowning" is very similar to our own from the 50s and 60s. Many of us have a working knowledge of that time period so it's easy to fill in the blanks for what's going on. Furthermore, the magic system is so well entrenched into the culture that it feels like a natural part of the world. So often magic systems are slapped onto a world but don't seem to affect it down to a day-to-day.

Reid's writing is very poetic, almost to the point of being lyrical in some cases. In previous experience my main criticism with this writing style is that it seems the authors will get so attached to certain phrases that they're dialogue suffers. As in out of nowhere a character who was previously flamboyant and ridiculous is all the sudden preaching at a pulpit over tea. I do not have this criticism here. Each of Reid's characters have a distinct voice that they keep throughout the story. It's easy to know who's speaking as none of them sound the same.

anyway I'm glad that Mr Benett(I listen to the audio books I don't know how it's spelled) got fired or whatever but he deserved to go to jail at least and I'm so mad that he didn't

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