Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Drowning Kind

The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon was a bit of a disappointment for me. I kept wanting it to surprise me or have a unique plot point, but unfortunately it never came. For my review I tried to imagine I was someone who hasn’t read endless thrillers and many generational ghost stories, and through that lens it’s a decent read.

Let’s back up though and talk plot. In it we meet Jax, who is returning to the house she grew up in after her sister has drowned in the pool. We also meet Ethel, who visited the family’s estate in the 1920s when it was a hotel. The story weaves between the two timelines and tells the story of the land and the families who have occupied it throughout time. There are multiple unreliable narratives / narrators and in my opinion, that was the backbone for the mystery.

I love a ghost story and I really love generational stories. I love thrillers and horror. This should have been a brilliant fit of a read for me, but it just lacked the punchiness and originality. Again, if you don’t consume paranormal thrillers often this would likely be a good read. It just wasn’t a great fit for me, personally.

Content warnings: Death, Drowning, Mental illness, Self-harm, Child death, Alcoholism, Infertility

Content Warnings

dalmavatai's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Not as good as The Children on the Hill imo, I found the character development in that one superior. Even so, this is a super solid horror read with a lot of suspense and a memorable sister relationship.

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jmbz38's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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lfbennett407's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense 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? No

2.75

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hazelgirl21's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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stellarya's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

readbydusk's review

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

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bluejayreads's review

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I can’t remember what exactly enticed me to pick this up. Maybe I found the idea of a wish-granting spring that takes in equal measure to what it gives intriguing. I think part of it is my library put it in a list of popular supernatural-based horror titles and I’m trying to expand my reading horizons. Regardless, I read it – or at least I tried to.

First, there’s Jax. While I was initially put off by her being a social worker who by her own admission isn’t self-reflective, I could definitely relate to being the ordinary child overshadowed by a charismatic sibling. In my case said sibling was younger and wasn’t naturally good at everything like Lexie, but being the forgotten good child while a charismatic Problem Child got all the attention is a situation I know all too well and created an instant connection with Jax.

I didn’t have that same connection with Ethel, whose story alternated with Jax’s. She wasn’t bad, but I didn’t see how her story fit into Jax’s and found her sections much less interesting.

I think this story was supposed to be a slow burn, but it ended up just being slow. I read 59% of it, and in that time, Ethel had gone to the hotel and wished for a baby, and Jax had gone to her grandmother’s estate to deal with Lexie’s death, cleaned the house, went to the funeral, and realized that Lexie had been investigating the pool (which is fed with water from the spring). The suspense was driven by the hints that there was something in the pool, and by the time I stopped I had worked out what was in the pool but Jax had just started to get curious about what Lexie was working on.

I thought this was supposed to be some sort of suspense/thriller thing with supernatural horror and I wasn’t getting any of that. I knew enough about the spring to feel like I already knew what it would take from Ethel, but not enough about it to know if it would want something from Jax. Lexie was already dead, and since nobody else that I knew of had made a wish, it didn’t feel like there was any threat. The only suspense was coming from the question of what exactly was living in the spring (which I figured out fairly quickly) and why the spring granted wishes and took things in return (although I got the feeling that the only explanation I was going to get for that one was “it’s supernatural”).

Admittedly, suspense/thriller isn’t my genre, so this all may be me more than the book. But I wasn’t getting any suspense or thrills out of this, and the slow burn ended up just being slow to me. The Drowning Kind just isn’t my book.

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