Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - A Study in Drowning

This book is marketed as YA but there are a lot of adult, dark topics mentioned and referenced. It's more new adult in my opinion.

I was reading part of this in the middle of the night and I actually had to stop reading because I was so freaked out. This is a surprisingly tense and freaky book. It's a little bit of a thriller and a fantasy with a healthy dash of romance.

If you ever read The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova, this book is very reminiscent of that, with more fantasy.

Content Warnings

cryosphinx's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.5

This type of book isn't my usual cup of tea since I like my fantasy to NOT have cars and I don't tend to read dark academia type genres but the atmosphere and mystery really hooked me in. The writing is also very beautiful and I found myself highlighting so many sentences that were just lovely.

The mystery is the main driver of the story, and is carried by the FMC and MMC, and one main side character, with little focus on any other side characters until near the end which was fine, there's just not a huge "supporting cast." The ending fell sor tof flat for me, leaving me wondering about some parts I thought would be resolved but weren't which is what keeps me from giving it a full 5. But I will sing it's praises and recommend it to anyone who will listen. It's a standalone but I hope for another book maybe set in the same world. Effy and Orestons story wraps up nicely don't it doesn't necessarily need to be them, but the world is so dark and beautiful that I want to go back.

Content Warnings

louisepea's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

3.0

'The only reason anything matters is because it ends.'

Effy, the only female architecture student at a prestigious university, wins a contest to redesign the home of her favourite late author.

Troubled by visions of the fairy king her whole life, as well as dealing with sexual abuse from her professor, and an uncaring mother, Effy hopes it will be an opportunity to escape her demons, and finally prove herself. But when she arrives at the dilapidated estate which is threatening to crumble into the sea, Effy discovers another student is secretly attempting to prove that her favourite author is a fraud and the book she finds solace in was penned by another writer.

Effy is furious, but Preston wants her help, and putting her name on his thesis could open doors in the literary college she longs to enter but can't because she's a woman.

With her role to redesign the house proving to be more complicated than she thought, and her host a creepy lech, Effy secretly teams up with the insufferable Preston to uncover the truth about the author and the origin of her favourite book.

Their quest takes them on a dangerous journey which sees them facing two men willing to do anything to hide the truth. a predatory fairy king attempting to claim what he believes is his, the unforgiving forces of nature, and perhaps most perilously of all, their growing feelings for each other. *Gasp*.

Can Effy and Preston uncover the truth and alert the world or will their curiosity see them paying the ultimate price to someone determined to keep it a secret?

*

I was so excited to read this book, but considering the hype online, it wasn't what I was expecting at all, and while I enjoyed it, I guess I'd anticipated so much more.

It was a weird but atmospheric little read about two rival students who team up to secretly uncover the truth about their favourite late author and his most famous book while staying in his creepy, dilapidated old house on other assignments. To be honest, this was a pretty boring storyline I had little interest in, but the threats from their lecherous host, a creepy fairy king, the eerie house, and the elements themselves made it a great, moderately-paced read, and kept me turning the pages. (Although, I felt the addition of a fairy king was a really odd choice for this YA academia / mystery, and made little sense to the story. I think it would've been better without this fantasy aspect).

I really liked the two main characters, Effy and Preston, and their slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance was adorable in a way only young love is. Preston sweetly vowing to look after Effy, a vulnerable young woman who'd known nothing but neglect, fear, and sexual abuse her whole life, might have melted my cold, dead heart. I loved how he always had her back, even when they had different views, and the way she made him blush was too cute.

I was on the edge of my seat during the scenes in the flooded basement, when it seemed like all hope was lost for a happy ending for the two of them, and it added a much stronger climax to the story than the truth that unravelled about the author and Angharad. To them, I say 'meh.'

Overall, I thought it was a suspenseful three star read with an interesting setting, likeable main characters, and some good lessons to be learnt. But did it wow me? No, not as much as I'd hoped.

Content Warnings

hannahs_library_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

sappix's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

I’ve been waiting for a proper modern Gothic ever since I first read my all-time favourite novel Wuthering Heights (my own Angharad). It had everything I was looking for and more - and in a YA novel, no less! This was definitely dark enough to be a full adult book; it did not hold back.

However, there are a couple of things holding back .25% of a full five star rating got me:

Firstly, there’s this personal, nagging quote I didn’t like. One of Preston’s last lines: “I don’t believe in objective truth anymore”. Like, I understand this is also a fantasy novel in which myths and dark Fairy Kings are real (or is he?) and truth in fantasy is different. HOWEVER, in this age of rampant misinformation, anti-intellectualism, and diminishing of what “truth” means, it rubbed me the wrong way. Because there is such a thing as objective truth in real life, at least in most regards. I understand not everything is objective and for individual human lives and feelings things can be subjective. This quote just rubbed me the wrong way.

Second: I think Effy and Preston could have had more character development. I love that Effy is more quiet, introverted, and not externally / physically strong, but I did feel she wasn’t given much agency by Reid. Effy seemed to develop rapidly at the end and in the final moments at Hiraeth Manor she framed her developing sense of worth on Preston and his view of her instead of her own self. And to some degree it’s fine; we all need to be rescued and externally validated to grab a foothold in our lives and struggles sometimes. I just think there is a way to be naturally more meek and quiet, yet strong, without derivation of self worth coming from a man.

Content Warnings

allisonisabel's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This book is purely for the vibes. Those were great, but I did have some issues with the story as a whole. The climax ended up being anticlimactic, I guessed the ending halfway through, and the romance, while adorable, did not feel properly established. However, the line level writing was gorgeous, I appreciated Effy’s character growth, and I absolutely loved Preston.

Content Warnings

agnela's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.75

Some important themes are explored, or rather, involved in this story, such as being a sa victim, mental health, taking advantage of women and stealing their work, gatekeeping women from education. I think readers will appreciate that these heavy topics where either just mentioned in plot or used lightly, while you still can see the impact that it made on the female characters.
The other good thing about this was it's world building. Yes, at times it was confusing, and I still don't know what was the bottom 100, as it was used interchangeably with places, people, higher-ups and the bottoms of the social hierarchy. Still, the author weaved in nature with folk tales, and sprinkled with some gothic old house placement and academia. That being said....
This story was all tell and no show, the last 50 pages were just annoying and unnecessary in my eyes. The characters were flat, more like plot devices than a being on their own, and relationships moved and changed depending on the plot but not the story itself.
I've heard good things about this book but I can't see why exactly, I'm not even sure I'll continue reading more of this author.

Content Warnings

beefthedwarf's review against another edition

Go to review page

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? No

3.75

No Spoilers:

"A Study In Drowning" was captivating, magical, and mysterious. I typically am not drawn to romances, but the relationship between the main love interests was compelling and sweet. I often see the book marketed as Enemies to Lovers or Rivals to Lovers, but I'd moreso call it Disagreement to Lovers or perhaps simply Opposites Attract.

Act 1 is quite slow to pick up, Act 2 does a good job building the tension, and Act 3 is exhilarating -- until it's not. It seems like the author lost some confidence that her work would speak for itself and added 30-ish pages of exposition that essentially explained the whole book and then some. A lot of it would have been more rewarding sprinkled through the earlier parts of the book. Nonetheless, it is very well structured.

Overall, the book was an amazing read and extremely rich in both prose, world building, and themes surrounding misogyny and sexual assault (both literal and metaphorical).

Spoilers:

Something I thought was interesting about the book was that Reid created this entirely new world of fantasy realism just as the backdrop for her academic mystery. It could have just as easily been set in the irl 20th century United Kingdom. This isn't a gripe -- it's a fascinating choice that I found myself enjoying immensely. The faintly magical history, the cultural views of the characters, the fake excerpts from fake scholarly critiques and essays, the vague implication that this is a post apocalyptic fantasy future following the impact of irl climate disaster... -chefs kiss-

Act 1 was slow to start, as if the author wasn't quite sure where to begin. In her effort to avoid giving away Effy's character and history too quickly, the beginning was just too vague and I found myself almost DNF-ing. I just didn't feel compelled to care about any of the characters yet.

Ava Reid did an excellent job finding ways to push her characters to engage with the plot. This was especially important considering Effy as a character is described as an escape artist -- always running away from difficult problems. The plot really starts when Effy has no way to go back to college OR go back home. While her psychosis ends up just being the "Magical Psychosis" trope (booooo), I feel like her other mental illness is very real. The splitting, the assumptions, the black and white thinking, the urge to escape, the lack of identity colliding with the urge to know how other people view her, etc. All very common for folks with C-PTSD (or, if I were to armchair diagnose her, BPD). I feel like the author was very well versed in Effy's style of trauma response and handled it well.

I don't know how many times Effy was described swallowing her pills dry. Folks -- DO NOT DO THIS. I don't know how this poor girl did not develop an ulcer.

The book glosses over a lot of the characters' bodily functions. As far as we can tell, Effy's guesthouse has no bathroom, and the only bathroom we see in Hiraeth Manor is dilapidated and Ianto doesn't allow Effy to use it. Where does she piss?! Where does anyone piss?! No one ever seemed to eat breakfast or dinner either, except the one time at Blackmar's mansion. While there is a degree in which an author shouldn't be expected to elaborate each and every human maintenance, this was a very noticeable exclusion.

I loved the artificial history and scholarship surrounding Myrddin and literature as a whole in Llyr. It really made the world feel big and real, even if it was just a backdrop for the mystery. It made the characters feel big and real -- the world matters to them. However, I was disappointed that there was a brief descent into the politics of the warring countries, their respective settler colonial history, and which of them could actually be considered the aggressor, only to have it dropped entirely without a single additional mention.

I often see the book marketed as Enemies to Lovers or Rivals to Lovers, but I'd moreso call it Disagreement to Lovers or perhaps simply Opposites Attract. Effy got annoyed at Preston for petty reasons and Preston was more or less minding his business. There was a moment of conflict upon Effy discovering the truth of Preston's thesis, but an alliance formed quickly. It was well done and great to read, but not exactly what I'd call Enemies/Rivals to Lovers.

The changeling reveal for Effy was a bit sloppy, in my opinion. While the book was clear there was a secret to Effy, it would have been more interesting and rewarding if the concept of changelings and their naming conventions had come up earlier in the book.

The book deals heavily with Effy's sexual assault trauma and her responses -- escaping, escapism, anxiety, lying, splitting, emotional responses, etc. I also feel like the book was not-so-subtly hinting at the affects of childhood sexual trauma as well, thought less explicitly described. This can be seen in the way Effy both admires and vilifies Angharad (the character), and fears and fantasizes about the Fairy King. It makes sense -- even if the Fairy King did not touch her the same way her human assailant did, knowing that an adult wants to take you as a child bride is incredibly distressing.

Act 2 does a good job building the tension, and Act 3 is exhilarating -- until it's not. It seems like the author lost some confidence that her work would speak for itself and added 30-ish pages of exposition that essentially explained the whole book and then some. A lot of it would have been more rewarding sprinkled through the earlier parts of the book. It was incredibly boring sitting and reading Angharad reveal the answers to all the mysteries to our protagonists who'd almost died trying to solve them. Most of the evidence they managed to uncover was lost entirely, which was disappointing -- but I suppose they needed that information as the big push to go into the basement and find the box, which did survive. Given that Reid gave an acknowledgment to Zelda (presumably Fitzgerald) at the end of the book, I suppose Angharad's long winded exposition was the spirit of every female writer whose work secretly bolstered a man's career. Still, it was just not very fun to read after the excitement of the climax.

Speaking of the climax -- at some point, I totally lost track of how Ianto was doing anything. How was he grabbing Preston AND shackling him to chains AND hammering a stake into a wall AND holding a musket to his chest? Totally took me out of the scene trying to figure it out.

Overall, the book was an amazing read and extremely rich in both prose, world building, and themes surrounding misogyny and sexual assault (both literal and metaphorical). The Fairy King as a stand in for sexual trauma and grooming, paired with the recurring symbol of green representing victimhood, was very gratifying.

Content Warnings

More...