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A review by rachel_faerie
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft
Did not finish book. Stopped at 77%.
Firstly thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early review copy.
I’ve been reading this book for what feels like weeks. I made it to 77% before ultimately deciding to DNF so here are my thoughts.
The initial premise sounded really intriguing. However I found the first chapter really set the tone for an extremely confusing and disconnected story. I kept reading because I didn’t want to judge based solely off the first chapter.
On paper this book has so many things that should work for me. Magical expeditions, murder, academic rivals, its sapphic, magical creatures. But unfortunately the writing didn’t bring these to life for me as much as I would have hoped.
At 77% I don’t feel as though I know anything about the characters except surface level information. Even the main character whose head we are in, we get glimpses of her past and see how she’s dealt with some tragic moments in life but they didn’t have any emotion to them. It felt like an almost cold and clinical assessment of her past. I genuinely can’t even remember a single moment of her backstory that illicited any feelings.
Also the side characters were extremely lacking. The professor / mentor type person of this expedition gets murdered fairly early in and I was excited to be suspicious of and conflicted about all the side characters and I just was never given the opportunity to do so. Through Lorelei’s eyes we never get those moments of investigation outside of her searching the dead professors room a few times. It’s all just supposition in her head “what if so and so did this” “what if so and so is the killer!? It’s probably not anyone else so it must be them” it’s actually very lack luster in terms of actually investigating anything.
Meanwhile this half rent investigation in going on their also looking for this magical spring with the source of all magic and even the magic and magical creatures along the way felt truly boring. We’d encounter a creature and get 3 sentences of description before Lorelei or Sylvia would be like “oh this is ______ and here’s exactly how to deal with it.” And then we just move on. We don’t get enough description of creatures or the world itself. I can’t picture anything about this world itself.
There was also lots of rambling about political tension and kings and dukes and ladies. But none of it felt connected to the main characters just something they brought up for the sake of (boring) tension. Like it didn’t feel integrated into the plot more like a mandatory thing they had to talk about.
There was something about the writing style that made all of these plot elements feel really disjoined and not at all cohesive. I felt like if you removed the political plot, the story is the same. If you leave the politics and remove the murder plot, the story is the same. If you keep both of those and leave the search for the magical spring out, the story is the same.
Nothing felt connected.
I’m really bummed about this one because it felt like it would give me similar feelings as Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries with the academic aspect being meshed with magical creatures but unfortunately it was a let down for me for all of these above mentioned reasons.
I do think this book has an audience out there but unfortunately that is not me.
I think if you’re someone who’s extremely new to fantasy and just want to dip your toes into magic this would be a great bridge for you.
I’ve been reading this book for what feels like weeks. I made it to 77% before ultimately deciding to DNF so here are my thoughts.
The initial premise sounded really intriguing. However I found the first chapter really set the tone for an extremely confusing and disconnected story. I kept reading because I didn’t want to judge based solely off the first chapter.
On paper this book has so many things that should work for me. Magical expeditions, murder, academic rivals, its sapphic, magical creatures. But unfortunately the writing didn’t bring these to life for me as much as I would have hoped.
At 77% I don’t feel as though I know anything about the characters except surface level information. Even the main character whose head we are in, we get glimpses of her past and see how she’s dealt with some tragic moments in life but they didn’t have any emotion to them. It felt like an almost cold and clinical assessment of her past. I genuinely can’t even remember a single moment of her backstory that illicited any feelings.
Also the side characters were extremely lacking. The professor / mentor type person of this expedition gets murdered fairly early in and I was excited to be suspicious of and conflicted about all the side characters and I just was never given the opportunity to do so. Through Lorelei’s eyes we never get those moments of investigation outside of her searching the dead professors room a few times. It’s all just supposition in her head “what if so and so did this” “what if so and so is the killer!? It’s probably not anyone else so it must be them” it’s actually very lack luster in terms of actually investigating anything.
Meanwhile this half rent investigation in going on their also looking for this magical spring with the source of all magic and even the magic and magical creatures along the way felt truly boring. We’d encounter a creature and get 3 sentences of description before Lorelei or Sylvia would be like “oh this is ______ and here’s exactly how to deal with it.” And then we just move on. We don’t get enough description of creatures or the world itself. I can’t picture anything about this world itself.
There was also lots of rambling about political tension and kings and dukes and ladies. But none of it felt connected to the main characters just something they brought up for the sake of (boring) tension. Like it didn’t feel integrated into the plot more like a mandatory thing they had to talk about.
There was something about the writing style that made all of these plot elements feel really disjoined and not at all cohesive. I felt like if you removed the political plot, the story is the same. If you leave the politics and remove the murder plot, the story is the same. If you keep both of those and leave the search for the magical spring out, the story is the same.
Nothing felt connected.
I’m really bummed about this one because it felt like it would give me similar feelings as Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries with the academic aspect being meshed with magical creatures but unfortunately it was a let down for me for all of these above mentioned reasons.
I do think this book has an audience out there but unfortunately that is not me.
I think if you’re someone who’s extremely new to fantasy and just want to dip your toes into magic this would be a great bridge for you.