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

A gothic fantasy full of feminine rage.

It has everything of a classic gothic novel: a female who’s maybe mad or uncovering something, a spooky house with a spooky man, and a mystery to keep her there with a sprinkle of romance.

I overall really enjoyed this story. I loved the characters and the spooky gothic house. The water and drowning imagery was also delicious. I loved the feminine rage and depictions of the female experience.

The plot was a bit obvious towards the end and the last two chapters of wrap up were boring. There were a lot of quotable lines but also an equal amount of cringey pompous lines. I loved the world building but at the same time for a stand alone novel it seemed unnecessary for a personal success plot. It followed the main character and her struggles not a political or societal change.

It follows Effy who is the first female architecture student at this university. She enters a competition to build a house in memorial for her favorite author who has recently passed away. She is invited to the house to discuss and finalize her plans only to get there and see how truly messed up and spooky the current house is. The house is on the cliff which could be swallowed by the sea at any moment. Will Effy, the creepy man owner of the house, and the other male student researching there survive or succumb to the house?

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shakiral's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

5.0

Love it, but now I'm left with the knowledge that there's limited editions out there with different bonus content in each.

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hazychapters's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

4.0

Third book by Ava Reid that I've read and it's another very pleasant reading. A small change of universe, with a dark academia world inspired by Welsh folklore.

The characters are very endearing, although I had a little difficulty at first differentiating Effy's voice from Marlinchen’s (Juniper and Thorn). Ultimately, Effy becomes a fully-fledged character, very interesting to analyse and follow. Preston is a very good love interest who touched me a lot. A little faded but that didn't bother me since for me, Effy is the main character, not him. Their romance was perhaps a little rushed but it was self-evident given Effy's narrative arc and her evolution.

Reid's prose is still as melodious as in his other books. The descriptions are imposing but they immerse us with the characters in their emotions and feelings.

However, I had a little more difficulty with the worldbuilding, which was a little vague at the start (I needed a map!!), and the pace of the story. This one is indeed quite slow, which didn't help my reading slump, and we progress very slowly until the half or even the two thirds of the book. The ending is much more accelerated but therefore causes an imbalance.

In conclusion, a very beautiful book with a powerful message: the invisibility of women in academic circles and of the victim of a toxic relationship and abuse. Ava Reid always manages to write beautiful stories that deal with dark and serious subjects.

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tinybluepixel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

3.5 stars. And once again, the need to categorize everything as either YA or Adult strikes.
Man, I really wished I could give this book five stars, but this being called a YA book really makes me cringe. Because this is not for teenagers. This is not for young adults. This is a book that could be severely triggering for some people, and it also carries with it a message that can be extremely harmful to young people with mental illness.

But let's start with some positives, and really, there are a lot! I personally love Ava Reid and her writing style to death. She just has a way of creating an athmosphere that is unparalleled in modern literature. Her characterization - top notch. I would kill for Preston, and I would die for Effy.

I loved the whole storyline of you-should-never-meet-your-heroes. It felt like watching Effy grow up the more she learned about her hero, and keeping her company as she slowly begins to combine the image of the glowing, shiny author with the disgusting old man he really was. It feels a lot like growing up, myself, and I think it's so, so necessary, especially in today's era of celebrity worship.

I see a weakness in worldbuilding, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing all the time - sometimes you just wish things were expanded upon. Why is literature, out of all things, the thing that women aren't allowed to study? How do you get from literature to architecture being the second most prestigeous thing to study? Who makes those rules, who decides them? How does a society who values literature like that differ from our own, which mainly focuses on STEM?

I loved the idea of the Sleeper Museum. See, that's what gets me going - something specific, something cultural. But who came up with that idea? Why does a building full of dead Southerners end up in a Northern city? Ava, I need more. I need more worldbuilding.

Furthermore, I'm really confused as to what time this book takes place in. Because we have cars and cigarettes, but no TV or radio. We're in a time that allows women to go to universities and work, but they're clearly seen as secondary citizens.

I just have so many questions.

Okay. Trigger Warnings for sexual assault, rape, severe mental illness, and drug use below.

Here's what's really bothering me about this book. And maybe I should just say that I am also severely mentally ill and are currently being treated for an addiction to sleeping pills.
Effy is also seen as severely mentally ill. She takes sleeping pills every night (even swallows them dry a lot, which is something you should never do!) and cannot sleep without them. (I relate.) She takes what she calls "pink pills" to get rid of what the doctors call hallucinations, which, spoiler alert, turn out to be real!!! Wow, what a stunning plot twist! And then, when all is over and the big bad evil guy is defeated, she just cold turkey stops taking all of her medication and all is well. Because of course that's how it works. And when she forgets her sleeping pills on a trip, being next to her love interest calms her down so much that she is able to sleep! Hurray!

That is dangerous. If you are on medications like Effy's, I assume some kind of anti-psychotic in addition to sleeping pills, you cannot stop cold turkey without severe side effects. Out of my own experience, if you forget your sleeping pills after taking them every night for that long, you don't just nod off to your lover's silky voice, you WILL be crawling across the floor and ripping apart everything you own to find one. You WILL be looking into every pocket of every article of clothing you brought along in case you ever put a pill in there, even if you know you won't find anything, because you're desparate. And in the end, you probably will end up spending your night on the bathroom floor, hugging the toilet bowl.
So, inaccurate portrayal of sleeping pill addiction. Okay, I could live with that. It's not glamorous and it's not romantic. I understand that.
But this message of the-doctors-don't-understand-you and giving you antipsychotics even though what you're saying is actually real - that's dangerous. Just imagine a teen reading this. A young girl, like Effy. She's being treated for mental illness. She takes antidepressants and antipsychotics. She reads this book. She might come to the conclusion that her doctors are talking bullshit. She might not! But teenagers are easy to influence, and might already be inclined to believe that no one understands them. I'm just so worried. Maybe I'm worrying too much. Maybe I'm not giving teens today enough credit.

But even if this wasn't in the book, even if Effy wasn't taking enormous amounts of pills throughout the entire story, I still wouldn't call this book YA. Nothing about this is YA. There is graphic sexual assault scenes and rape scenes that while they do not occur on page, have an enormous amount of influence on Effy. Almost every male she comes in contact with (and those are quite a lot) uses sexually charged language towards her. I'm actually not even sure if this book passes the Bechdel test, because if two women talk, they always talk about men. But it's honestly tiring for man after man to appear on page and immediately start talking about disgusting things about Effy. She's so pretty. She's so girlish. She would look so pretty on my lap. (Ugh).

I wish so badly this book was categorized as a normal novel and not "Ava Reid's big YA debut!!!". It just feels like so much bad marketing. And ultimately, I think that this will lead to a lot of disappointed and confused readers.

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