Reviews with content warning for Sexism - A Study in Drowning

I really wanted to love it, but some things fell a little flat for me.
To start, I really did love the prose and the vibes. It was beautifully written, and the descriptions were poetic. It felt like the setting itself was another character.
It was pieces of the plot that I had more trouble with. Not even plot holes, just like "oh, that's it?" moments.
Reid really did a great job setting up for a fantastic story. I think the initial plot line of

the widow being the true author

was predictable just from the theme of

men exploiting women

that was established very early on. I genuinely don't think a predictable plot is a bad one though, and I had thought that Reid had created enough going on alongside this plot-line to really create a captivating story.
But then, nothing else really happened. There were some super interesting side plot setups:

Effy having some other worldly beauty to the point that even a random boy at the college was annoyed with her until he saw her face then promptly asked her out. Sirens and selkies were even mentioned throughout the story alongside with Effy being a changeling child, but nothing ever came of it.

The war was mentioned quite a bit, but always in passing, like it didn't actually affect anyone we knew. It seemed like the only purpose was for the Sleeper Museum to have a function, and/or for Effy to make vaguely racist comments to Preston when she was mad, but it felt very underdeveloped.

I did like that for awhile we're really not sure if Effy is crazy like everyone thinks or if the Fairy King is real, because even she isn't sure.
Some questions I do still have that people might be able to answer for me:
1.

Why didn't the widow talk to them at all? Why/How did she escape the hall without making a sound if she wasn't a ghost?

The random sex scene felt out of place. It felt less intimate and more like the precursor to a 3rd act breakup

Why was the estate guy so cagey? He was helping Preston one minute, but suspicious of them the next.

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likeagilmoregirl's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-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

4.0

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kagamiri's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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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nyw951's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

Tragically straight, but the fae and story telling was fun. Didn't quite make the point about misogyny it wanted to. Took a bit too long to get to the twist

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ashleykhoffman's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This book was a quick read and it was a pretty different take on the fantasy genre than a lot of things I've read. The feminist plot line including a certain "big reveal" at the end were all super predictable. The way Effy's sexual assault was written about and brought up every few pages, even at times where it had no bearing on the rest of the scene, I imagine would be very triggering to a lot of people. The romance was cute, but super unrealistically paced.

Overall, predictable, but quick to read as long as it doesn't stir up any triggers for you.

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girlgetsbook's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

4.5

This book is the definition of "you're good, but I'm waiting for you to be great" (but more like, you're great, but I'm waiting for you to be exceptional). I truly love the combination of themes in this book: the dark fairy tale-esque atmosphere, the imagery of thrashing seas and old creaky houses, fantasy used as an allegory for real-world issues, the representation of trauma and mental illness, the parallels between mythical creatures and human beings, and the cruel nature that often links them, the feminist themes about women's rights to knowledge, to claim authorship, to have agency, and the critic of academia and how it often creates this awful space where women and other marginalized groups are explored by men in positions of power, not only on a physical level (their bodies, their beings) but also intectually (their work). I'm sure I'm forgetting some other thing that I really enjoyed about this book, but mostly those were the things that captivated me, alongside the beautiful prose.
However, I think this book could've been an adult novel. I know this is Ava's debut in the young adult genre, and she often writes very dark and intense adult fantasies that explore similar themes to this one but in a more brutal and raw way. I think this book is actually pretty dark for a young adult. At times, it was very hard to read because of how real the things Effy was experiencing are; in fact, as a woman in the arts and in academia, I was literally living a much lighter version of what she experienced as I was reading it.
Being in her head, a girl so traumatized, anxious, and constantly doubting herself and making herself smaller because of all the lies she's been told about herself, was a very intense experience, and it truly felt like I was drowning alongside her. The prose, the themes, and the plot were all there to make this an adult novel.
If only the romance was a bit less present, because though I loved the lightness and hopefulness it brought to the book, it also was what slowed down the plot and took me out of the story sometimes, especially towards the end when I really just wanted closure and more information on the main plot, but the whole time it was focusing on the romance and not the main themes of the book.
In the end, I think it was an almost perfect book; those things I pointed out were not bad by any means. This is still better than more than 60% of the books I read since last year. I just wanted to point out some aspects that contributed to my rating not being 5 stars. One last thing I have to say is that I loved the plot twist even though I predicted it. That didn't stop me from respecting and liking it since it brings to light such an important message.

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saramcaps'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? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Folkloric dark fantasy in which two academic rivals and literature aficionados travel to the home of one of their world’s most famous writers after his death. Amidst an ongoing regional war, the two must put their biases aside to find the truth of his legacy.

The book’s strength is in its incredible dark academia, Welsh mythology-inspired setting. But, it’s too complex in some ways and leaves thematic questions unanswered in the chaos of wrapping up the plot. I wish it were 100 pages longer!

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hello_kara's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

0.25

This is the longest review I have ever written, mostly driven by rage as I hated this book and the more I think about it the more I dislike it.

“Midnight was a fairytale thing. She didn’t know if Preston had been thinking about that when he promised it. But Effy was remembering all of the curses that turned princesses back to peasant girls as soon as the bells struck twelve. Why was it always girls whose forms could not be trusted? Everything could be taken away from them in an instant.”

“I suppose that’s partly why I don’t have much faith in the notion of permanence. Anything can be taken from you, at any moment. Even the past isn’t guaranteed. You can lose that too, slowly, like water eating away at stone.”

I liked those quotes, that’s about it.

World building was a bit confusing, and it was difficult for me to pin down a time-setting. Advertised as “Part historical fantasy, part rivals-to-lovers romance, part Gothic mystery.” It’s set in a fantasy UK inspired world, maybe from the 60s? 🤷🏼‍♀️ There’s trains, cars, universities, tanks and guns, CT scanners, phones, but also folk magic and changelings. Their country in the South is at war with the one in the North, for unknown reasons. Universities admit women, but they really only go to get husbands and aren’t allowed entry into the one discipline reversed above all others that Effy actually wants to study: Literature. Her scores were so good she should have gotten in, but because of misogyny she wasn’t admitted. She goes and studies Architecture instead (apparently the second most prestigious discipline.) As it so happens she is the ONLY woman in that college.

Effy has a woman roommate, who attends the music college and has a girlfriend, which is never addressed again after the first chapter. But also there’s major purity culture. Effy is always being hit on by the men at college, who are simultaneously aroused and disgusted by her, calling her whore. Why? Oh the Dean of her college has sexually assaulted her, so obviously she must’ve slept her way in to the college.

It’s not all bad though! (🙄)She sees a poster for a competition to design a remodel of her (late) favorite author’s home. The author in question is now instated as a Sleeper, one of seven revered national storytellers believed to have magic that protects their country. There’s a museum with the corpses of the Sleepers on display, which is the countries biggest tourist attraction, (and yet belief in Sleeper magic is 50/50? Is it real or not?! If it’s just an old wives tale then why do the bodies not rot, why would they induct a new dead guy onto the roster?)

But I digress, Effy goes to the university library to do some research on the author (even though she knows his works ‘better than anyone’) and finds that all the books have been checked out by a Literature student. She’s pissed, and very jealous. He has a “Northern” name, and she wonders why he gets to study her Southern hero author and not her. Thus begins the “rivalry.” She also thinks to herself that none of the other architecture students would be worthy of winning, because she’s the only one who truly loves that author’s works, despite him being a national treasure.

And suddenly she wins! A first year student who’s failing half her classes and hates architecture! Her roommate calls her out on this and says don’t you think that’s kind of weird? Nope! She’s like 18/19 years old, with no support from family (her mom like actually hates her and basically tells her to never call again), and decides what could possibly go wrong?! She gets approval to take time off of school to go to the end of the world to work on designs for this house (but wait, I thought you had to submit your design plan for the competition??) Once she gets to the house ~SURPRISE~ she meets the Lit student who borrowed all those books! Preston. So she hates him right away and is downright mean to him. The homeowner/son of dead author starts talking to her about the plans and construction etc.(SHES NOT A FUCKING GENERAL CONTRACTOR) He’s really weird about her being around Preston, but also makes suggestive remarks towards her.

If the book wanted me to think “men are trash,” it succeeded. It was so misogynistic. Effy is not allowed to study literature on account of women’s feeble and trivial little brains. Annoyingly, just about every man Effy comes into contact with tries to make a move on her because she’s just so ‘otherworldly beautiful,’ but in the same breath call her whore. Preston is the love interest, but he gives major “I’m just brutally honest!” vibes. He gets brownie points from Effy because he didn’t immediately come on to her (ladies, the bar is SUBTERRANEAN.) But at one point even Preston was basically like ‘yeah I totally would’ve ducked you already if I didn’t actually like you’ (wtf?)

There was a definite creepy vibe, with the setting being a decrepit manor that was falling apart and into the sea. And yet… Water had overtaken the foundation, but it’s also up on the cliffs? So that was confusing. And the whole architecture competition, but she didn’t have designs drafted or finished? How did she win? Oh never mind, it doesn’t matter because it was all a plot by the Fairy King to claim her.

I read a lot of fantasy, so I can generally adjust my sense of realism accordingly. But this one just didn’t land for me, the inconsistency in whether or not magic of any kind was real in this world really bothered me. For a while I thought we were going to get to the end and find out she had hallucinated the whole thing!

Effy has been on meds for most of her life, due to nightmares and visions of the Fairy King. She is a changeling, her mother left her for dead by the river, and the Fairy King came to claim her. But her mother came back a took her before she could fully be claimed. In the process she lost her ring finger from fairy magic. So she found comfort in the fairy tale, feeling ‘not like the other girls.’ She knew the story in and out, loved it, saw herself in it. It was her entire personality.

But why is this story the country’s national treasure? This fairy tale about a woman who is stolen away by the Fairy King and forced to marry him, written from a woman’s POV? This story that got the male author credited with writing it into like the National Hall of Fame of a country that won’t allow women to study literature because it is ‘beyond their capacity to comprehend.’

~spoilers~ it was written by a woman. A hidden truth that would never have been uncovered if it were not for Effy. She and Preston write up their findings to present to the college. She gets into the college of Literature for her contribution, and simultaneously gets her former Dean fired.

Effy sees the true author of the story. She asks her to autograph her well worn copy of the book, they smile, triumphant. The end.

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