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A review by story_singer_101
A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Wow. Just, wow.
...
Yeah. Words. Um.
So, this was good. I checked it out on a whim after debating back and forth whether or not I wanted to read it for actual months. And then I promptly devoured the entire 10.5 hour audiobook in *checks calendar* just over two days. Yup. Couldn't turn it off. Couldn't put it down. Stayed up until 1am this morning to finish it.
Here's the thing. I've read a lot of YA fantasy, and, before that, I spent an entire childhood reading old faerie tales, hunting down mythology from other cultures, and meticulously planning how I would ward off an evil Fae creature from either court--Seelie or Unseelie didn't matter. So when I say that I can normally read the tropes and predict the endings of fantasy books, it's because I have a massive internal data set I'm drawing on of all the tropes used in the genre as well as the adjacent faerie tale/mythology genres. And yet A Study in Drowning kept me guessing pretty much the entire book. Right up until the end, I didn't know what was going to happen, who to believe, or even what the basic premise of the worldbuilding was, and it worked. It worked so well. I was completely enthralled. The imagery and thematic content were beautifully done, the message was clear and poignant, the writing was captivating, the world was fascinating, the characters grew and developed, and I was fully engaged and interested for the duration of the story.
The only reason this isn't a full 5-star rating is because there was an open-door (but pretty non-graphic) sex scene that contributed very little if anything to the plot (it's very easily skippable if you don't want to read that kind of content and are afraid of missing plot details) and because the defeat of the Fairy King felt kind of... anticlimactic after the build-up. I'd hardly wrapped my head around him being real after all and then all of a sudden he was dead... . I might also change my mind later and make this a full 5-star rating because of just how masterfully it was done despite the aforementioned hiccups. So if my rating changes a lot here, you know why.
In summary, you should read the book. It's really good. You should also know that this book deals very heavily with the themes of sexual assault, so, if that's triggering to you, you shouldn't read the book. I thought it handled the themes really really well, but, yeah, be informed and don't re-traumatize yourself.
...this means I need to find something else to read...
That's unfortunate.
...
Yeah. Words. Um.
So, this was good. I checked it out on a whim after debating back and forth whether or not I wanted to read it for actual months. And then I promptly devoured the entire 10.5 hour audiobook in *checks calendar* just over two days. Yup. Couldn't turn it off. Couldn't put it down. Stayed up until 1am this morning to finish it.
Here's the thing. I've read a lot of YA fantasy, and, before that, I spent an entire childhood reading old faerie tales, hunting down mythology from other cultures, and meticulously planning how I would ward off an evil Fae creature from either court--Seelie or Unseelie didn't matter. So when I say that I can normally read the tropes and predict the endings of fantasy books, it's because I have a massive internal data set I'm drawing on of all the tropes used in the genre as well as the adjacent faerie tale/mythology genres. And yet A Study in Drowning kept me guessing pretty much the entire book. Right up until the end, I didn't know what was going to happen, who to believe, or even what the basic premise of the worldbuilding was, and it worked. It worked so well. I was completely enthralled. The imagery and thematic content were beautifully done, the message was clear and poignant, the writing was captivating, the world was fascinating, the characters grew and developed, and I was fully engaged and interested for the duration of the story.
The only reason this isn't a full 5-star rating is because there was an open-door (but pretty non-graphic) sex scene that contributed very little if anything to the plot (it's very easily skippable if you don't want to read that kind of content and are afraid of missing plot details) and because
In summary, you should read the book. It's really good. You should also know that this book deals very heavily with the themes of sexual assault, so, if that's triggering to you, you shouldn't read the book. I thought it handled the themes really really well, but, yeah, be informed and don't re-traumatize yourself.
...this means I need to find something else to read...
That's unfortunate.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual assault