A review by fastcat_11
A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Someone on goodreads said “I’ll never be Normal about this book” — and now that I finished I can truly say that I understand and 100% agree. 

Some quotes that are amazing:
  • I was a woman when it was convenient to blame me, and a girl when they wanted to use me 
  • “You don’t have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery, too.”
  • “But didn’t all drownings begin with a harmless dribble of water?”
  • “Effy hated that she couldn’t tell right from wrong, safe from unsafe. Her fear had transfigured the entire world. Looking at anything was like trying to glimpse a reflection in a broken mirror, all of it warped and shattered and strange.“
  • Not from the book but from a review that succinctly describes what’s so powerful about this book:
    “[this story is] filled with feminine rage. Rage against how easy it was, and is, to write women out of their own stories, to claim them as your own. Rage against those in a position of power abusing it. Rage against the men who stake claim on a woman and do not like when the woman refuses.”


Random thoughts:
1) The parallels between Effy (the FMC) and Angharad were heartbreaking. Their similar circumstances despite the different time periods really showed how timeless an issue sexism is and how society can warp a woman’s perspective of herself into doubting her own strength/sanity. I’m glad that in the end Effy could claim her own story and get a foothold in the literary world even if Angharad wasn’t able to. 

Angharad’s quiet ending and liberation with being able to tell the truth seemed like a different kind of win though — more along the lines of a quiet dignity and her quote that you don’t have to pick up a sword to be brave. Having spent so many years with a monster while keeping her sanity  and wittingly trapping him along with her was a bravery as much as Effy’s standing down the Dean.


2)  Effy being banned from the literature school because of an outdated founder’s perspective could be a continuation of the repeating message that women aren’t allowed to tell their own stories and that keeping a male centric voice to history is a source of power for the continuation of society’s status quo.

3) It’s interesting that the events at Hiraeth can be seen from two lenses: fantasy (Effy) and realism (Preston).  Emrys was either a good man who had selfish/greedy tendencies and that caused the Fairy King to possess him, or he was always a bad man and the Fairy King was just a way for Angharad to dissociate from her life by compartmentalizing the evil in man as separate from the good. 

Personally, I think the second is more realistic given that Effy saw the Fairy King in all of the men in her life during the moments when Effy could peek behind the veneer of polite society and see their true (bad) intentions. However these glimpses  could also be a continuation of the fantasy POV that the Fairy King can possess men because “weakness and wanting is like a wound, a gap [the Fairy King] can use to slide in” — aka when set in a patriarchal system that allows men to do whatever they please, the absolute power can corrupt their morals.


4) I’m so glad Effy learned from Angharad’s example and fought back at the end against the men in power controlling her life. The quote “Effy looked around the room again. Angharad had been here before: three men arguing over her work, laying a framework for her future. She had been silenced then. But Effy would not be silent now”???? That’ll definitely  live in my head rent free for the rest of my life. 

Also shoutout to the author for letting the FMC kill her OWN demons and save her OWN life instead of having the MMC pull a knight in shining armor trope. I was pleasantly surprised that Preston chose to support Effy in her goal to join the literary college, and didn’t let his “inner Fairy King” out by being greedy and taking her name off the byline or disagreeing when she leveraged the paper to get the SA assailant fired.


5) Effy going from abused and doubting her sanity to realizing her visions are reality and that abuse isn’t a given in the world (double “pull the wool from your eyes” moment) is such a good analogy for the transformation from internalized misogyny (women are crazy and deserve to suffer abuse silently) to self realization and empowerment (what I’m seeing IS the truth and ISNT crazy).


6) It’s ironic that the two people (Myrddin and  Blackmar) who mocked Angharad’s writing were known as mediocre writers themselves and SHE wrote the work that earned billions and lasted for decades. Preston and Effy spend the whole book ripping apart Myrddin’s early (only) works and Blackmar’s childrens rhyme, only agreeing on the point that the book Angharad is a masterpiece. The fact that both misogynists who prides themselves on their literary superiority would be poor/unknown without exploiting the labor of a woman is iconic. <\spoiler>
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