This book was so fantastically written that I was able to ignore some of my issues with it. This is my full spoiler review of ‘A Study in Drowning’, which was one of my most anticipated reads of last year. This is YA Gothic, Dark Academia story, and I ended up giving it 4 out of 5 stars.
Is there a book that feels like it was written for you? A book that seems to know you in some soul-deep way? A book that seems- somehow-to love you as much as you love it? When Ava Reid set out to write ‘A Study in Drowning’, she wanted to write about that feeling. About stories that see us, that save us. There is something precious and beautiful about that, but it also creates many thorny questions, such as: if you love a story, does it belong to you?
The main character, Effy, is studying architecture, but her true passion lies in literature, and one book in particular: Angharad is a piece of folklore literature that is considered a modern-day classic in this world. It is the one piece of media that Effy feels entirely seen by. The author of Angharad passed away a few months before the start of this book, and Effy receives a mysterious letter inviting her to help redesign the late author’s manor after she won a contest. Obviously, she has to go. This guy is her favourite author, and this is her favourite book. But when she gets there, she discovers that the manor is crumbling into the sea. It is not fit to be restored by a first-year architecture student, and there’s another kid there named Preston from the literature college who is intent on proving that Angharad is not written by the person that we think it is.
Ava Reid tends to be a very polarizing author, and I expected this book to be no different in that respect. There are people who absolutely love ‘A Study in Drowning’ and there are people who absolutely hate it. Let’s get a little deeper into my thoughts about it.
I’ll start with the things that I really liked about this book.
First on the list is the writing, which is fantastic. The sense of atmosphere here is well done. If you’re fond of very lyrical writing, vivid imagery and a sense of tension that builds up throughout the story in the way that a Gothic novel should, then you’ll find a lot to like about this book. I feel like the language that Ava Reid uses is so precise for what she’s trying to do.
I also think that the character of Effy is resonating with a lot of people. She’s like other Ava Reid characters I’ve read in the sense that she’s an outsider to society and within her own life. Many people will be looking forward to reading a character like Effy. She’s not like other Young Adult protagonists, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory ‘not like other girls’ way, but she’s not snarky, she’s not witty, I wouldn’t call her very strong or necessarily very brave, but I would call her a survivor. Her romance with Preston is very sweet and gentle. If you like the dynamic between Iris and Roman in ‘Divine Rivals’, then I think you will like this, too. That being said, this is not like rivals or enemies to lovers like this book has been advertised as, and if you go into it expecting that, I think you’ll be disappointed. The romance does move very quickly.
Both of these things – the strong writing style and these characterizations – are what contribute to what I think is the strongest part of this book, which is the thematic elements of it. It is impressive how much Ava Reid was able to cover thematically with a relatively short book. This is a book about how men take advantage of women, how particularly academic systems will not change unless pushed and forced to change, and how people will endure difficult situations even if they get worse over time because it’s all that they know and they don’t see a way out. It is often a dark book, but I think it’s a very rewarding one.
That being said, this is not a perfect book by any means, and there are a lot of parts of this book that I was frustrated with.
The first critique you will see people have about this book (and something that bothered me as well) is that the world-building here is…interesting. There are a lot of elements at the beginning of the book that are given the kind of thematic weight that usually implies that they are going to be important later, but they never become relevant again. For example, there’s a war going on, and it has no bearing on this book whatsoever. There is folklore that significant authors in this world are consecrated as ‘sleepers’ who have the ability to magically defend the country, and this also never becomes relevant, and we do not know more about it than surface-level information. Neither of these points are necessary to make this book have a complete story, so it was confusing to be introduced to them. They could be removed, and it would be less confusing.
The geography of this world is also a little confusing, and this is something that doesn’t usually matter, as we’re focused on one location for the bulk of the story. However, Ava Reid introduces a lot of political elements into this story that make the geography relevant. I think we have three different cultural regions that are relevant within the book. Preston, the love interest, is from what I assume is fantasy France, which here is called Argant. Effy is from Llyr, which is a fantasy England. And then Wales is represented by this region called the Bottom Hundred, which is an economically disadvantaged folkloric part of the country. Fantasy England having a Welsh name and Fantasy Wales having an English name is what I can only describe as an interesting choice. I’m not saying it was a bad or wrong choice, just…confusing, especially when Ava Reid is pulling in politics and imperialism and the effect it has on culture and who owns those stories and who benefits from them. It’s just strange from a linguistic history perspective.
I think this is a book that could have benefitted from removing some of the wider irrelevant world-building and focusing wholly on the Welsh folklore and Effy as that is where the emotional heart of this book lies.
Ava Reid describes this book as being about possession. The possession that a lover feels over their object, a storyteller over their story, a scholar over their subject. It is a love story, not just between Effy and Preston, but between Effy and Angharad, the book that pulls her from the dark.
‘A Study in Drowning’ is a good fit for those seeking a haunting and atmospheric tale of self-discovery, empowerment, and the blurring of reality, with a focus on the struggles of women in a patriarchal society, the power of stories, and the healing process of overcoming trauma.
TandeWrites 