Reviews with content warning for Child death - They Drown Our Daughters

This read was hit or miss for me - I enjoyed the strong women characters and the portrayal of complicated family relationships. I enjoyed the gothic elements and portrayal of the sea and the darkness it holds for our characters but this felt like it was building to something more and it just didn’t get there for me.

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gg2019's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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lianavalente's review

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emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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golderest's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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map_to_neverland's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Book Details:
-Genre: Gothic Mystery/Thriller
-Setting: Cape Disappointment, WA
-features a generational curse and a Siren

Atmosphere
My favorite element of this book was the atmosphere. It is a gothic, suspenseful novel about a curse that is taking the lives of mothers in a family line. But, this book is definitely a slow burn. It is not full of jump scares, horror, and witches. Its set in a scenic area, but the setting is described in an eerie way.

Themes
One thing this book does really well is balance the story about the curse with discussing themes of mother/daughter relationships. It ends up bringing a level of emotion to the story that wouldn’t have been present if it only focused on the curse.

Overall
This was a really interesting book! It is important to know what to expect, as it is described as a haunting story that is part ghost story. This book is not a horror about ghosts or a story about witchcraft and magic, but contains a slower atmospheric suspense.

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amandasbookreview's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Thank you, Katrina Monroe, NetGalley, and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read this book! It releases on July 12th, 2022!

“Everyone around here talks about the cape like it exists for the sole purpose of either killing or blessing them. Curses or Mermaids. They forget…” She sipped the vodka, willing it to stay down. “It’s all about the mothers.”

THEY DROWN OUR DAUGHTERS

I was so excited to be given an opportunity to read They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe because they said it is perfect for fans of Jennifer McMahon, whom I love! Be prepared for multiple perspectives and timelines, but the main timeline begins in the present when Meredith leaves her wife and heads home to Cape Disappointment with her daughter, Alice. There are rumors that it is haunted and Meredith’s family is at the center of the rumors. While Meredith doesn’t believe in ghost stories, her mother does. But soon Meredith hears the call from the ocean and suspects her daughter does as well. Maybe she needs to start believing in order to save her daughter from a cruel family fate.

There is a lot happening in this story. It is about multiple generations of women who endure trauma and can’t escape a family curse. It all starts with one mother who would do anything, even kill, to keep her children. But is that really what happens? At first, I thought I knew where this story was headed but I am not going to lie the last quarter of the book did lose me a little bit. The finale of the book is heartwrenching, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t cry–because I totally did. But the portion before the finale could have used a little polishing. It just didn’t flow as well as the rest of the story.

Many people will hate the different timelines and perspectives but I loved it. It really dove into the inner workings of the mother-daughter relationships within this single family. The quote above states, “It’s all about the mothers.”–and it is so true. We watch Meredith go from unsure and broken from being in a terrible marriage, not being able to connect with her mother, and doubting her abilities as a mother to knowing precisely what to do and to heal the trauma of multiple generations. This book is wonderfully gothic and eerie and I was not disappointed! I definitely plan to read more of Katrina Monroe!

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mothumn's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

ARC REVIEW
They Drown Our Daughters is a story about a curse that is passed down from mother to daughters that fans of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor may enjoy.

While reading this I really enjoyed the setting of a foggy, small, east coast fishing town and I thought the concept of a curse that could be a more literal manifestation of the difficult relationship between mothers and their daughters and the experience of women was very interesting. The idea that only the daughters were impacted by this and not the sons felt very familiar in the way that daughters in real life often have to shoulder a lot that sons never will.

Unfortunately though, the story didn’t delve into this idea very deeply which I found disappointing because that was the main thing I found interesting. The focus was more on the characters and the different timelines which for me just didn’t work. I found that all the generations of mothers and daughters felt very similar and therefore had the unfortunate effect of being very repetitive and blended together. None of the women seemed to have any distinct personality to distinguish one from the other and I often would forget which timeline I was reading from because of this. I found it very difficult to continue due to me not being able to care about any of the characters. Not only were they all very similar, but I felt that they were all very flat and did not feel real to me at all, often the dialogue felt forced and robotic.

Despite this, I still was interested to find out the mystery of what was really happening and so I continued on. I found it dragged quite a bit and was extremely slow paced and could definitely do with being cut down a bit. Many of the timelines because the same thing was happening over and over again just got very repetitive and just felt like I was rereading the same thing with only slight variations. I found it slow and there were many parts that didn’t work for me but it was still okay until I got to the climax of the story. This part just came out of nowhere, to me it just felt like a completely different book all of a sudden. There wasn’t really any foreshadowing to explain or anything that made this make any sense. It just didn’t work for me at all, which was really disappointing. I had hoped the ending would bring everything together and make me like it but it just didn’t do that at all.

I can’t say I’d recommend this but if you’re interested in a horror book that is not really scary and more atmospheric then you might enjoy this.

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