Book Review: A Study in Drowning

               welcome to my blog •••

      hello wattpad amino! welcome back! as

      you may know, i’ve decided to start writing

      book reviews on books i read this year.

       i am by no means a professional reviewer,

      and it’s important to note anything said here

      is purely my opinion, and i hope you’ll give

      all these books a chance.

               the book •••

       the book i’ve chosen to do this time is A

       Study In Drowning by Ava Reid (yes, the

        same author as last time). this book is a

        ya dark academia fantasy with a romantic

        subplot.

               trigger warnings for this book •••

       i don’t think there’s much in the way of

        serious trigger warnings for this book,

        however there are some mild topics to

       mention:

       • possession

       • smoking

        • implied sexual content

       • implied sexual harassment

               my review •••

       This book has been sitting on my tbr

       since last December, and that is far too

       long in my opinion. I picked it out on a

       whim as a last minute Christmas-want

       based on the sprayed edges and pretty

       cover. The story inside? That’s just a

       bonus! This book tells multiple different

       stories all at once— between the mythical

       side of things and the very-much real

       world struggles the main character faces

       throughout her journey.

        The novel follows Effy, the only girl in

       an architecture collage. Effy never wanted

       to study architecture, she wanted to study

       literature, but the sexism of this world doesn’t

       allow woman to study such important topics.

       Sound familiar? It should. As one would

       expect, Effy faces sexual harassment from

        her teacher and her peers throughout the

       beginning of this novel, and that follows

       her all the way through. This is an integral

       part of Effy’s story, and a key factor in

       many of her decisions.

        The story follows Effy’s journey to an

       impoverished (and very wet) land in order

       to renovate her late favourite author’s family

       home. While there she meets Preston, a

       literature student who is writing his thesis

       on the same author. As the story continues

       on, Effy and Preston discover more and more

       about the author, and less and less makes

       sense.

        I have to acknowledge Ava Reid’s specific

      ability to connect real world technologies

      and struggles with fictional realities and

      blend them seamlessly; from the corporate

      overlords and high tech lifestyle of fable for

      the end of the world, to the older styled-dark

      academia of a study in drowning, Ava Reid is

      absolutely a talented YA author with a gift for

      non-conventional world building.

       The love story between Preston and Effy is

      definitely not a slow-burn by any means,

      and the main thing preventing it from

      developing faster is Effy’s own, very

      understandable, hesitations based on her

      previous experiences. For a romantic fantasy

      it definitely works, but it’s also not the

      greatest love story I’ve ever read.

       Effy also struggles with visions of the

      Fairy King, the cruel antagonist from her

      favourite novel. She takes medications to

      hold these visions at bay, but the longer she

      spends in the impoverished part of the

      country, referred to as the Bottom Hundred,

      the more visions she experiences, and the

      less her medications work. As the story

      progresses and we learn more about Effy’s

      past and how the visions came to be, we

      begin to put together the pieces of the

      puzzle. Without one crucial bit of

      information everything seems too.

      coincidental.

      The villain of the story is obvious, at least

       in my opinion, from very early on. That’s

       because it was never meant to be a secret.

       I really enjoyed feeling both enthralled in

       the story and yet not completely blindsided

       by every chapter. Some of the major plot

       lines I saw coming a mile away, and yet

       that didn’t take away my enjoyment from

       seeing them come to .

       This novel has an sequel that I

       definitely will be reading when it comes out,

       however at the same time I feel like it tied up

       all the loose ends and would do just as

       well as a standalone.

        Overall I really enjoyed this novel, and I’d

       rate it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. For a fantasy

       novel I felt that the fantasy aspects of it

       were very much in the background, and

       didn’t play much of a role in the majority of

       the story. I feel like the novel could’ve told

       very much the same story without magic

       playing much of a role in it at all. A fantastic

       read, and definitely a good introductory

       story for anyone who wants to branch into

       fantasy but isn’t ready for the full fledge

       high fantasy experience yet.