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A review by sappiem08
A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
adventurous
challenging
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? No
4.0
Conceptualizing any kind of love as total only when in complete possession of the object of one’s desire, be it land, an idea, a story, or a girl; will lead to ruin. That’s powerful. Exploring this idea through real world issues, sexual assault, domestic violence, social isolation, colonialism, and nationalism is a strong choice. Especially when it’s paired, as it is here, with fantasy elements: possession by fairy king, entrapment by iron and berries and ash, and being swindled by the sidhe. The raging ocean personifies this theme and is present throughout. The sea has claimed the land and its people before in the Drowning. Will it do so again?
This mindset of possession in the past and as an ever present threat now ties in nicely to another strong point in this book: the depiction of how abuse and sexual assault absolutely f*ck with your mind as a young person. Effy is always hyper aware of the potential for sexual advances and sexual overstepping by the men around her. She can’t parse whether sex should be a tool that she uses to get things she needs (because aren’t these men just going to take that from her anyway?) or something that she needs to run and escape from. I’ve never seen a book, especially a YA book, get this so right. Getting molested turns sexuality into a game of safety vs aggression, rarely is it about affection in the aftermath. Your mind zeroes in on how you are being sexualized by the people around you, or how they could be sexualizing you, or how you can sexualize yourself, or how you can desexualize yourself; for safety. Effy is hyper alert to this threat and it’s not romanticized, it’s a nightmare. This is skillfully paralleled with her encounter with the Fairy King at a young age. He comes to her and tells her that nobody else can have her, that she is not her own person. Being possessed by him and by others until he gets to her becomes an inescapable fate that’s she’s always running from, and until she learns how to fight. Not by denying her visions and calling herself mad, but taking action against him and defending herself. I loved that and I loved her story of growth.
However, I think it made the relationship with Preston a bit unbelievable. I appreciated that Effy’s instinct to express her affection for him was to make a sexual advance. The tangling of sexual love and romance after being abused is messy and this shows that playing out. But I do think their story needed more time. He says to her, “you can’t love a person without knowing the,” and I just don’t buy that they know each other yet. If this is going to be a series, I think this would have been more rewarding and more true to the healing journey that Effy is on to see this romance develop slowly overtime. It doesn’t ruin the book, but I didn’t really feel like it was natural for the trajectory of their relationship or for where Effy was at mentally.
Another aspect of this book that felt tangled was the way that it sort of chews up and spits out an amalgamation of different Celtic cultures to use as its baseline for fantasy. This happens all the time in fantasy and honestly I’m done with it. Naming the house Hiraeth, which means to long for a long lost pre-colonial Wales feels icky. Stealing the name of an actual Welsh mythological figure and making him a fraud and an abuser is icky. Turning fictional Wales (Llyr) into the colonizing force is icky. I appreciate that this author tried to reckon with the colonial brutalization that Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany have faced; most authors don’t even try (cough cough SJM and Yarros). But it still feels culture vulture-y.
The book somehow as the same time relies on the reader having knowledge of different elements of these cultures’ folklore and also never credits them or explains them. Preston speaks butchered Breton. Why? It’s unnecessary and completely avoidable. If it wasn’t a minority language, we would all be like wtf? I appreciated seeing the incorporation of saints and other ideas from these cultures, however this outsourcing of the culture of Llyr from Wales leaves the world without an internal sense of logic because it goes uncredited and unmentioned. Why can’t this just be set in Wales? A fantasy, alternate timeline version? It’s giving Narnia if C.S. Lewis was an American who completely made up a vaguely totally not England fantasy land named Albion and claimed Shakespeare as a fictional author, iykyk. (Also Saltney is a real town, but it’s just outside of Chester in the north.) [it would be something like referring to Naperville as a small southern fishing village if you’re from Chicago].
I think the world she builds is beautiful, but it would be more beautiful if she leaned into the Welsh and other Celtic inspiration or just let go of it. This element doesn’t ruin the book, and it obviously comes from a place of admiration, it’s just a bit clunky and awkward. It misses the mark.
I think this book is interesting. I enjoyed it, despite its rather confusing flaws. I’m left wondering if the author felt compelled to do away with some nuance and opt for more oblique expressions of the themes of colonialism, sexual assault, and misogyny because this is her first venture into YA. For example, the feminism presented in this book is quite underbaked. Effy didn’t need to be the only girl at the architecture college to experience this, and I think there could have been a more interesting examination of internalized misogyny and structural sexism if there were more women around her. Would they believe her? Would they support her? Would they shame her?
These would have been more fruitful explorations and I did feel the absence of female characters. The book presents the issue of sexism as solved when the abusive Professor is fired and the literature college accepts women. But this doesn’t actually change the systematic sexism that made Effy’s abuse possible. Maybe this will be explored in future installments of this series, but I just felt like sexism being portrayed as the sort of no girls allowed/the sole girl is abused by the men in her environment was too simple. A YA reader can understand that sexism still exists even if you are not the only girl in your environment and that women can perpetuate it in ways that cut to the quick; especially when looking for sympathy or support after being abused. This author didn’t believe that of her readers and her book suffers because of it. Other themes, especially colonialism and xenophobia get the same treatment.
Overall, I find the strong parts of this book, the atmosphere, the quest, the themes, the depiction of Effy’s traumas outweigh the quirks. I will be continuing this series.
This mindset of possession in the past and as an ever present threat now ties in nicely to another strong point in this book: the depiction of how abuse and sexual assault absolutely f*ck with your mind as a young person. Effy is always hyper aware of the potential for sexual advances and sexual overstepping by the men around her. She can’t parse whether sex should be a tool that she uses to get things she needs (because aren’t these men just going to take that from her anyway?) or something that she needs to run and escape from. I’ve never seen a book, especially a YA book, get this so right. Getting molested turns sexuality into a game of safety vs aggression, rarely is it about affection in the aftermath. Your mind zeroes in on how you are being sexualized by the people around you, or how they could be sexualizing you, or how you can sexualize yourself, or how you can desexualize yourself; for safety. Effy is hyper alert to this threat and it’s not romanticized, it’s a nightmare. This is skillfully paralleled with her encounter with the Fairy King at a young age. He comes to her and tells her that nobody else can have her, that she is not her own person. Being possessed by him and by others until he gets to her becomes an inescapable fate that’s she’s always running from, and until she learns how to fight. Not by denying her visions and calling herself mad, but taking action against him and defending herself. I loved that and I loved her story of growth.
However, I think it made the relationship with Preston a bit unbelievable. I appreciated that Effy’s instinct to express her affection for him was to make a sexual advance. The tangling of sexual love and romance after being abused is messy and this shows that playing out. But I do think their story needed more time. He says to her, “you can’t love a person without knowing the,” and I just don’t buy that they know each other yet. If this is going to be a series, I think this would have been more rewarding and more true to the healing journey that Effy is on to see this romance develop slowly overtime. It doesn’t ruin the book, but I didn’t really feel like it was natural for the trajectory of their relationship or for where Effy was at mentally.
Another aspect of this book that felt tangled was the way that it sort of chews up and spits out an amalgamation of different Celtic cultures to use as its baseline for fantasy. This happens all the time in fantasy and honestly I’m done with it. Naming the house Hiraeth, which means to long for a long lost pre-colonial Wales feels icky. Stealing the name of an actual Welsh mythological figure and making him a fraud and an abuser is icky. Turning fictional Wales (Llyr) into the colonizing force is icky. I appreciate that this author tried to reckon with the colonial brutalization that Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany have faced; most authors don’t even try (cough cough SJM and Yarros). But it still feels culture vulture-y.
The book somehow as the same time relies on the reader having knowledge of different elements of these cultures’ folklore and also never credits them or explains them. Preston speaks butchered Breton. Why? It’s unnecessary and completely avoidable. If it wasn’t a minority language, we would all be like wtf? I appreciated seeing the incorporation of saints and other ideas from these cultures, however this outsourcing of the culture of Llyr from Wales leaves the world without an internal sense of logic because it goes uncredited and unmentioned. Why can’t this just be set in Wales? A fantasy, alternate timeline version? It’s giving Narnia if C.S. Lewis was an American who completely made up a vaguely totally not England fantasy land named Albion and claimed Shakespeare as a fictional author, iykyk. (Also Saltney is a real town, but it’s just outside of Chester in the north.) [it would be something like referring to Naperville as a small southern fishing village if you’re from Chicago].
I think the world she builds is beautiful, but it would be more beautiful if she leaned into the Welsh and other Celtic inspiration or just let go of it. This element doesn’t ruin the book, and it obviously comes from a place of admiration, it’s just a bit clunky and awkward. It misses the mark.
I think this book is interesting. I enjoyed it, despite its rather confusing flaws. I’m left wondering if the author felt compelled to do away with some nuance and opt for more oblique expressions of the themes of colonialism, sexual assault, and misogyny because this is her first venture into YA. For example, the feminism presented in this book is quite underbaked. Effy didn’t need to be the only girl at the architecture college to experience this, and I think there could have been a more interesting examination of internalized misogyny and structural sexism if there were more women around her. Would they believe her? Would they support her? Would they shame her?
These would have been more fruitful explorations and I did feel the absence of female characters. The book presents the issue of sexism as solved when the abusive Professor is fired and the literature college accepts women. But this doesn’t actually change the systematic sexism that made Effy’s abuse possible. Maybe this will be explored in future installments of this series, but I just felt like sexism being portrayed as the sort of no girls allowed/the sole girl is abused by the men in her environment was too simple. A YA reader can understand that sexism still exists even if you are not the only girl in your environment and that women can perpetuate it in ways that cut to the quick; especially when looking for sympathy or support after being abused. This author didn’t believe that of her readers and her book suffers because of it. Other themes, especially colonialism and xenophobia get the same treatment.
Overall, I find the strong parts of this book, the atmosphere, the quest, the themes, the depiction of Effy’s traumas outweigh the quirks. I will be continuing this series.