A Study in Drowning (Review)

Information:

• Author: Ava Reid
• Genre: Horror, Realistic, Fantasy
• Page Count: 376
• Year Published: 2023

Read This if You Like:

• Dark Academia/Gothic
• Semi-historical fantasy
• Slower, Atmospheric novels
• Dark Fairies (Or Faeries? Fae? I don’t know anymore.)
• Rivals to Lovers
• Discussions around sexism and misogyny
• Mysterious houses on cliffs
• Fictional locations
• Mysterious fictional authors

Synopsis:

When Effy Sayre hears of a contest to redesign the house of late author Emrys Myrddin, she immediately joins as if it is by fate. Myrddin has always been her favorite author, especially his novel Angrahad, and while she is qualified to study his works at the Literature College, she is banned from doing so due to their ban of women, leading to her slogging through her architecture course as the only woman there. By some miracle, she wins the contest and heads off to visit Myrddin’s estate, located in a dangerous land that was threatened decades ago by a storm that drowned almost everyone in the town- and there’s rumors that it will happen again. But the crumbling foundation of the cliff side estate seems to be the least of her worries when she meets Preston, a scholar at the college who’s at the estate to prove that there’s something about Myriddin that’s being hidden from everyone, and Effy will need to prove him wrong by working with him on his thesis. But as Effy and Preston somehow become closer, Effy also finds out that not everything she knows about Myrddin is true, starts to suspect that Myrddin’s son, Ianto, is hiding something, and she’s having visions of the Fairy King, the main antagonist of Angrahad. It turns out that the house may be hiding a secret- one that will tear everyone apart.

Review/Opinions:

(Note: I enjoyed this book, but I have a lot to say about it. So expect some very minor spoilers that slipped into this review, especially when I start discussing the climax.)

I love dark academia, but I’m also extremely picky about it. I’ve been let down by quite a few horror and dark academia novels lately for different reasons, and I was hoping A Study in Drowning would be good, since it was one of the more popular Dark Academia YA books. Also, I spent extra money to get the collector’s edition, which released around the holiday season, since it looked so beautiful and it gave me an excuse to actually read the book (which was sitting ignored on my TBR ever since it first got published about a year ago), so I was really praying that I didn’t make a wasteful purchase. And this book was actually good overall, but I have some thoughts. First, while this story is definitely Gothic, I’m not entirely sure if it’s Dark Academia since although it has a similar atmosphere, themes around knowledge, and contains a university… Effy spends only the first 2 chapters and about 3 quarters of the final chapter in said university. In addition, I typically associate Dark Academia more with occult themes and secret societies, and not the more fantasy-like themes in this book. So when I use the term “dark academia” in this review, just know that I’m using it in a looser way then when I review other dark academia books. Anyway, onto the rest of the review:

The most unique part of this novel was the world building. This novel was set in an entirely new world (inspired by Wales and England according to other reviewers.) Even though the blurb states this is a “historical fantasy”, I can’t really tell if (in terms of this fictional world), this novel takes place in a more historical or modern timeline, because while there are some more “modern” innovations like frequent use of cars, coffee, and focus on architecture, the story also has things like only being able to use telephones to make calls (dark academia YA typically has more cell phone usage then I would like there to be), and there’s academic sexism in levels that were more common historically then now (more on that later.) There was also this war between the two main nations in the story that wasn’t really expanded on, but I heard it will be explained more in the sequel, so that’s good. I also enjoyed how the book included snippets from Myrddin’s fictional writing and similar made-up texts in the world, since it helped expand the world even more. The overall mystery was intriguing, and it unfolded really well overtime as Effy spent more time in the house. And the atmosphere was well developed- ocean/storm themed imagery may be surprisingly common in YA gothic/horror, but it’s because it’s one of the most effective ways to create an immersive story. It did move a little slowly, but compared to similar novels, I don’t think the story would benefit much from faster pacing since it’s really about atmosphere. At least this book actually got started on its main plot by page 40, compared to many other YA novels.

I was surprised by how much the romance actually played into this story. If I could make a comparison of romance vs plot in this book, it was probably a bit over 50% romance and slightly less plot. Effy and Preston are a strongly developed rivals-to-lovers couple, with a decent amount of tension due to their conflicting goals before slowly connecting with each other. I think the best part was how Preston helped Effy look past her trauma and didn’t treat her like others did in her past. The relationship is also a nice balance of slow burn but not so slow that we don’t get the kiss in the final sentence of the book. (We do get a “more than kissing” scene at one point, but it’s on the vaguer side.) Also, finally, there wasn’t any major miscommunication or an unnecessary 3rd Act Breakup. Effy and Preston weren’t the best YA couple ever, but they were definitely on the better side.

The book also deals with some pretty heavy themes, mostly relating to misogyny and sexism. There’s many moments throughout the book where Effy feels mistreated due to her status as a woman, including being excluded from learning literature despite her ability, and she’s still looked down upon as the sole woman learning architecture. Except for Preston, she’s mistreated by a majority of the men in the book. I feel like the book was very heavy on these themes, but it was done in a better way then in most dark academia that I read- it was a large theme, but it didn’t get so much in the way that it slowed down the horror a lot (and like I said, this book wouldn’t benefit too much from fast pacing) and it managed to be incorporated as part as the horror in a way that didn’t feel like it invalidated all the shocking parts.

There were two major structural issues with this book, however. First was the climax- it started off strongly with tension that made us question if anyone was going to survive, as well as a huge reveal when the villain was revealed. But then the villain was defeated in only 3-5 pages- and the rest of the climax was just some less exciting reveals, tying up loose ends by connecting and filling in the blank parts of the mystery that we didn’t find out yet, and restating the themes of misogyny and Effy’s reactions to what she found out throughout the story. And this second part was done in such a way that it felt like (excuse my Gen Z language) yapping, and there was just no excitement whatsoever, which is required in a climax. My second structural issue was the length of the chapters. On average, they were all around 20 pages on, resulting in only 17 chapters for an almost 400 page book. It’s not the biggest complaint ever, but 20 page-long chapters is a bit much for YA, and sometimes they were a bit of a slog to get through, especially since I had to often pause reading when I was in the middle of a chapter, and there weren’t many clear scenes that would make good stopping points.

Overall, I feel like A Study in Drowning was a decent YA dark academia that I’ve read, even though it’s a more popular pick, as I find most popular books to be greatly overhyped. (And I’m happy to announce that purchasing the collector’s edition instead of the standard one was not a waste of money to me since the book was actually good.) There are definitely other dark academia novels that I would say are stronger than this one, but this is on the higher end of dark academia/gothic that I’ve read, with likeable characters, a good atmosphere, and impactful themes that don’t drown out the story too much. I have already pre-ordered the sequel, A Theory in Dreaming, which releases in August (I ordered the limited first run collector’s edition of that one because I wanted it to match with my collector’s edition of the first book, so it better be good), and I might read the author’s upcoming YA (Fable for the End of the World, which is a sapphic dystopian romance releasing in March) or one of her Adult fantasy novels.