I really enjoyed this book.
Loved the main character. I would recommend this 10/10
Great story. Great everything. Love this authors writing style.

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid is the YA debut of the bestselling adult fantasy author. Because the plot is so original, it's a bit hard to summarize, but I'll try my best. The story revolves around Effy, who attends an architectural college as the only female student. She enters a competition to redesign the estate of the famous author of Effy's favorite childhood book. When she arrives at Hireath Manor, she discovers that she is competing with fellow student Preston to please the heirs of the author's estate. In addition, Preston has a secret mission to expose the author as a fraud. Can Effy and Preston learn to join forces?

Here is an enchanting excerpt from Chapter 1:

"The poster was as frayed and tattered as a page torn from someone’s favorite book. Surely, Effy thought, that was intentional. It was printed on a thick yellow parchment, not unlike her drafting linens. The edges were curling in on themselves—either shyly or protectively, as if the parchment had a secret to hide.
Effy used both hands to smooth the paper flat, then squinted at the curling script. Handwritten, it was smeared in several places. It was further obscured by a water stain of no discernible shape, like a birthmark or a growth of mold."

Overall, A Study in Drowning is an amazing YA fantasy and rom-com that will appeal to fans of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy or Divine Rivals. Even though this is categorized as YA, since the characters are in college, it seems more NA (new adult) to me and will definitely appeal to adult readers as well. One highlight of this book is the rivals-to-lovers trope, which is done well. Another highlight of this book is the gothic water imagery, which was beautiful to read. If I had to complain about 1 thing, I would have to say that I was confused to come across the character of Dean Fogg. I'm guessing the author was inspired by the Dean Fogg character in Lev Grossman's The Magicians books and TV show. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of fantasy books in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in September!

This immediately became one of my favorite standalone YA fantasies. I will say I struggled a bit with the sliiiight overuse of water metaphors and phrases, and even more with the world building; we have cars, record players, but in some places oil lamps and candles rather than electricity? And we were set in years around “191 AD,” which felt a bit odd and out of place (because AD stands for Anno Domini or “year of our Lord”) but this is obviously an entirely different world. Just leave off the AD, or create some other year reference specific to the invented world.

I also felt like Effy was a pretty lame female protagonist for a WHILE, but her character development was good, and Preston was such a wonderful character. And I loved Angharad.

Finally, the true authorship bit was SO OBVIOUS. I literally guessed at 10% and spent the whole book wanting to scream at them for being so obtuse haha. But I still loved this really refreshing mashup of like dark academia, YA fantasy, AND faeries. I also think the author did a great job of really wrapping up a very full and rich story in a single book.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC!

This is a beautiful, timeless book that I loved from the very first page. I loved both Effie and the clever way the author weaved in Welsh mythology, Stunning.

A Study in Drowning left me with a lot of questions:
📖Has a particular book ever been your security blanket? What would you do if everything you believed about an author is put into question, including authorship?
📢How do you speak out against institutional sexism & racism? Would you be willing to upset the longstanding order of politics & beliefs/superstitions/religion, & face the resulting fallout in order to reveal the truth?
👁️When your life has been embedded w trauma, how do you discern what is real & what is a coping mechanism?
 
Summary:
✍🏻In Llyr, scholarship & politics are entwined. Llyrians have a superstitious belief that the Sleepers (the 7 deceased storytellers of Llyr) will ward off threats & protect their homeland. Emrys Myrddin is the most recent addition to the Sleepers & was known for his most notable book, Angharad.
👧🏼Effy has always dreamed of the Fairy King, a character in Angharad, & is a Myrddin fangirl. She was denied entry into the Literature College, which is Llyr’s most prestigious field of study, & is the only female student in the Architectural College, which, rumor has it, she secured by engaging in illicit activity with a professor. Effy has difficulty discerning what is real & is dependent on pills for her anxiety & sleep.
🏚️When Effy gets chosen to redesign Myrddin’s home, she goes to Hiraeth Manor & meets Preston Héloury, a literature student who is researching Myrddin’s past. While Effy puts her faith in magic & Myrddin’s perfection, Preston seeks the truth. As she & Preston begin uncovering who Myrddin really was, Effy’s romanticized view of Myrddin begins to come into question…
 
Thoughts:
➕Pros: Ava Reid was great in setting a dreary, wet, moody, & gothic tone. She kept me on my toes, questioning what was real & what was fantasy. It was an easy-to-read, mystery/fantasy, YA novel.
➖Cons: I didn’t like Effy at all. Also, there were minute details & plot points that didn’t make sense, which bothered me until the end. 
〰️Overall: I liked the concept of the book (fairy tales, books, authors, gothic feel, rival-to-lovers, magic, mystery, truth, female empowerment), but maybe not the execution?
 
Thank you @netgalley @harpercollins @harperteens for the eARC. A Study in Drowning will be released on September 19, 2023.

A huge Thank you for the digital ARC goes to Netgalley, Ava Reid, and the Publisher! I was not expecting to get this one. So Again THANK YOU for this ARC. This book was great, I mean, what would you expect from Ava Reid, she's a treasure. This book centers around Effy. She is so incredibly relatable. She' not one to rush into battle with all her swords blazing, she's more likely to be hemming and hawing about the best way's to go about the battle, and I love that about her. If you are into Dark Academia, Rivals-to-lovers romance, Pick up this books as soon as you can! I would give this 4.5 Stars

This is quite possibly the best book I have ever read. Reid is a genius and a master in her craft. After just the first chapter I was hooked, my heart ached for Effy and I already felt so much for her in such a short amount of time. Reid knows exactly what to say, and what to left unsaid to make you really feel for her characters.

Full of gorgeous prose, you can feel the water pressing against your skin, smell the salt and decay, you are full transported to the Bottom One Hundred.

Reid is a master at weaving mystery into her novels. She tells you just enough to be intriguing, form theory's of your own, and pull you through the story.

The themes around drowning, both literal and metaphorical, woven through out the entire story are absolute perfection. Reid truly captures what it feels like to be a women in a world run by men at a visceral level. How it feels to be belittled and ignored when a women's experience is inconvenient for those who have more power than she does. How women are abused, taken advantage of and silenced. But also the importance of being heard, even if just one other person in this world feels understood because of your experience.

I loved Effy's character arc and Reid's male lead, Preston is stunning. He is smart, compassionate, and strong where it counts, in his convictions.

I wouldn't be surprised if this book is studied in literature classes of the future.
If your on the fence, definitely read it!

Social post will be posted closer to publish date.

Perfect for fans of Divine Rivals and classics like Jane Eyre!

Alt historical fantasy is my JAM right now! From the first chapter, I knew that A Study in Drowning was going to be one of my new favorites and I was not disappointed.

The story follows Effy, an architectural student whose true love is literature, specifically the works of recently deceaseds Emrys Myrddin. She wins a competition to design the late author’s estate in the south, and is quickly swept up in strange events. The titular character from Myrddin’s greatest work seems to be more than just a person of fiction. And her academic rival soon proves to be her greatest ally.

I loved the themes in this one, and also the fact that the older, predatory male characters were not romanticized. This was my first Ava Reid book but will not be my last!

Darkly romantic, unsettling and moving all at once, A Study in Drowning is an atmospheric story about readers and their relationships to stories; academia and the institutional sexism that it is built upon; and the frustrating treatment of women's voices both in academia and in life, especially among family. Reid's prose is so heart-achingly beautiful, the book is filled to the brim with lines I want to read over and over again.

The Gothic backdrop of a crumbling estate on a cliff is the perfect setting for this dark academia story. I could practically smell the salt as I read the book. The rivals to lovers romance is so tender and beautiful and really sets this book apart as one of my favorites of all time. The main character, Effy, broke my heart because of how relatable and frustrating her experiences have been. The world building in this story is excellent, giving the reader the sense of a complete world full of its own myths, religion, and history. Reid is a master at writing fantasy romance that is intense, bold, unsettling, and touching, and she has proven herself yet again with this YA debut!

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books/HarperTeen for providing me with an early copy in exchange for an honest review!

Really good, dripping with atmosphere and beautifully written. This can be a book for many audiences, not just young adult readers. I'll be recommending this for sure.

Overwritten and lacking depth in its actual feminist messaging. I also went into this expecting dark academia but this felt more like a thriller maybe? It felt like this book wasn't sure what it was.

This was such an action filled book! I absolutely loved the characters and the journey they went on. The plot was creative, interesting, and exciting. I will be recommending this book to everyone I know.

I really liked Ava Reid’s “Juniper and Thorn” (and I thought “The Wolf and the Woodsman was a-okay), so I was excited to read “A Study in Drowning.” This is the author’s YA debut, and for a YA book, it is much like her others in that there are some dark themes. This is definitely upper YA/NA, and it should hold appeal for adults. Check the trigger warnings if needed; while nothing is explicit, there are frequent troubling recollections. However, the content of “A Study in Drowning” is nowhere near as gory or horrific as that of her adult books. The author handles the difficult subjects in this book as deftly as she did in her other novels.

It is a slow-burning story; I can see how readers might want to put down the book at the beginning, but by the 50% mark, it’s unputdownable. The twists and turns of the story were quite obvious, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment of it.

Effy is an incredibly sympathetic character, and unfortunately, I think many girls and women can relate to her experiences. How Preston treats Effy is just perfection.

Ava Reid, you’ve done it again.

I tried my very best to go into this book blind, considering Ava is an autobuy author for me, so upon reading all I knew was that it was a dark academia / gothic romance featuring a deliciously unhinged FMC and there would maybe be faeries?

And it was everything I could’ve hoped for: spellbinding and slow, with an unreliable narrator and a cliffside manor slowly sinking into the sea.

✨Metaphor✨ is my favorite storytelling device, and this book was as much a study in it as it was in drowning — equally bonechilling and whimsical, the metaphors throughout ASID were masterfully placed and executed, and I ate. it. up.

This is one of those stories that, no matter how hard I try, I can’t adequately express my feelings about it. I didn’t love it, but I don’t think it’s meant to be loved; it’s meant to linger, to hover like a dark cloud, to remind you what it is to be seen.

So grateful to netgalley for an advance review copy, but I can’t wait to hold the real thing in my hands! 🥹

I wanted to love this one so much, but I just couldn’t get into it. I finished it, I just didn’t feel a connection to the MC.

This was my first dark academia book and it certainly won’t be my last!

This vibe was sooo intriguing that I just could not stop reading until I finished it.

I loved the blending of both the academic world and the spiritual/supernatural world.

I loved the themes of women empowerment, mystery, faeries, mental illness.

I would have loved to delve more into Effy’s past!!

I find it difficult to come up with the right words needed to describe how I felt about A Study in Drowning. No combination of words feel enough to describe just how much I loved this book. It was a story that called to me in a way few books do. I was riveted, scared, concerned, thrilled, happy, despondent, satisfied...I felt like all the emotions consumed me at one time or another. I was utterly enthralled. This story is poignant, stunning, and magical.

》Effy《

Oh my beautiful, vulnerable yet brave-hearted Effy.

A Survivor. A Dreamer. A Resilient Soul.

The narrative takes such good care of slowly revealing Effy’s backstory— which can be a triggering one to witness. She has been outcasted due to the machinations of powerful, horrible men. She has been groomed by men, misused by them, and ridiculed by them. She is drowning every second, her head barely taking in the air above water, but her strength is relentless— and she keeps swimming. Looking for an anchor. She grabs hold onto the myth of the Fairy King in the story of Angharad. A tale of fairies and survival she knows all too well.

The walls are constantly closing in upon Effy, the water rising, but her resilience is just as imposing, and the hope that comes from her dreams are her continuous salvation. Effy’s voice has been muted for far too long, but she begins a journey that may just end with her finding that lost voice once again.


》Preston《

Preston and Effy begin this story as different as water and oil. From different cultures, different perspectives, different social positions in life. Yet Preston is the first to see Effy as a fellow human, as an equal to him, not beneath him. He can see her hurt, the scars upon her heart, but he also sees her resilience, her intelligence, her courage. He sees what there is to admire.

Preston is a wonderful co-lead. Although we do not get his POV we see his growth through Effy’s eyes, and we see a young man filled with determination and bravery to uncover truths. He is led by his morals, and although stiff at times, through his companionship with Effy, his heart becomes softened and his resolve further strengthens. He is a gorgeous character.


》To Love to Ruination《

"Love" is a constant presence throughout the story, albeit not always in an expected way. Sometimes love is obsession, sometimes it is false, sometimes it is the capture of innocence and stolen dreams. Sometimes it is just a disguise for anything but love.

But sometimes, love does bloom, sometimes it’s tended with care and gentleness. The romance between Effy and Preston is one built in the most delicate of manners, one fostered so gently with care, one you will hope will eventually bloom in triumphant beauty. There is hope that two souls who may not seem like a perfect match will find just how well they do fit. A love you will hope will become an anchor amongst tumultuous waves, the guiding light through heavy fog, the gift of tentative friendship turned nurtured love.

The way love is presented in this story is majestic.


》Through the Dark, Murky Waters《

The atmosphere established in this book is phenomenal. The fairytale Effy clings to edges the reader into a world of magic, but when that magic enters the real world in its unique way, suddenly the atmosphere goes from magical to horror. Heightened with the allure of mystery and the encompassing tendrils of the gothic together, we are immersed in a world of tangibility that still feels infinite in its fantastical possibilities. It is spectacularly crafted. At times I wanted to hide under the covers with Effy, other times I wanted to join her and Preston in their investigations, all around: it was immensely satisfying world-building.


》For Whom the Bell Tolls《

I didn’t want to say goodbye to Effy and Preston. I didn’t want the final page to come and for it all to be over. I almost couldn’t bear the goodbye. I came to love this book so deeply, I came to love its protagonists whole-heartedly. Every new chapter just heightened my love. This is a book that gets better and better as you go along, the anticipation builds, a sense of addictive fear prickles your skin, you feel haunted by the mystery as it builds, by the fairytale that captivates you to an almost standstill...but the page must be turned. It cannot remain in place, not when so much is calling for more and more. To know, to believe, to hope.

I didn’t want this end, but I just had to know how it would all turn out.

This narrative cannot be constrained by words, it feels beyond that. Perhaps we have all have our own version of the Fairy King who haunts us. I felt a strange nostalgia take hold of me as I journeyed my way through this story. I admire Effy so very much, I hope she serves as inspiration for all to take control of our agency, of our personal stories— of our voices.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

"Anything can be taken from you, at any moment. Even the past isn’t guaranteed. You can lose that too, slowly, like water eating away at stone."

There is a lot going on in A Study in Drowning. It’s about institutional sexism in academia; about how young women are simultaneously treated as too insipid and frivolous to be of any consequence and yet also held responsible for the predation of the men who demand power over them. It’s about stories and the relationship between author and reader; about who really owns a story and decides what it means. It’s about all the ways your voice can be taken from you - both by others and eaten away at within yourself - and what it takes to get it back, if you can.
All of this is wrapped within a Dark Academia tale of mystery and romance (of the academic rivals variety) in a rotting old house on a cliff, intertwined with themes of the disconnect between religious, superstitious folklore and academic agnosticism. This book will have you questioning perceptions of reality and not knowing who or what to believe.
And all of it works so beautifully. A seamless blend of narrative, characters I absolutely loved, mysteries to unravel, and an ambiguously fantastical setting that you will question again and again. I loved this book so very much.

On the note of characters, I can’t not speak about the main character, Effy.

"You don’t have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery, too."

Effy Sayre is for the soft femmes. The anxiety femmes. The “I’ve been rehearsing my Starbucks order since I got in line” femmes. The “life has made my fight or flight response heavily weighted toward flight for my own survival” femmes. I love her. She’s not going to pick up a sword and get a training montage to defeat her enemies on a battlefield, she’s not always going to have the right quip at just the right time, and she’s not always going to have the right answers, but she shows that there’s a strength in softness. That it’s strength enough to survive and that the ways we find to make it through the day are valid. She’s not a perfect character, she has very real flaws beyond the sometimes trite “quirks that a romantic partner will find cute,” and it’s part of what makes her authentic and leaves room through the writing for real growth.

Almost as soon as I started this book I knew there was no chance that I was going to be Normal about it. Effy, has my whole heart. I love her, I feel protective of her, and I will lay down my life for her. (Remember, not going to be Normal about this). She distinctly puts this in the rare category of books that make me feel Seen as a human being, alongside others like VE Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and John Green’s Turtles All The Way Down. This is personal, it feels very singular (though it definitionally is not), and it absolutely elevates the experience of an already fantastic book. This idea is reflected in the story as well. To paraphrase, “Writing [a book is] like shining a beacon from a lighthouse…Are there any ships on the horizon? Will they signal back…?” It reminds me of the Kazuo Ishiguro quote “In the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it feel this way to you?”

And so, yes, I am the ship on the horizon signaling back. It feels this way to me too. And for that, A Study in Drowning holds a very special place in my heart. Five Stars.

3/5

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Ava Reid has become an auto read author for me since I read Juniper and Thorn earlier this year and absolutely LOVED it. I then read her debut novel The Wolf and The Woodsman which was not my favorite but still not a bad read. A Study in Drowning falls somewhere between those two on the enjoyability scale.

This is one of those books that I would categorize in the ‘no plot just vibes’ even though it had a great plot. I loved the atmosphere and setting of this story more than anything. It was so eerie and totally something you should read if you’re into dark academia that actually has an academic setting and a dark storyline.

It has a romance that does not over power the main plot but acts as a great side plot that enhances the overall story. Preston Heloury is truly a man written by a women *chefs kiss*

You will like this if you like:
- Dark Academia setting
- Slow burn romance
- A little bit of rivals to lovers trope
- Thriller/mystery storyline
- Gothic historical fiction vibes

What an amazing YA debut by Ava Reid. I thoroughly enjoy Reid’s writing in their adult novel, Wolf and the Woodsman, and her YA doesn’t skip out on any of the beautiful storytelling I enjoyed so much in WOATW. For those wondering though, ASID has a more gothic tone than WOATW, and I assume is not as dark as Juniper & Thorn (I have yet to read it, but based on the premise I believe this to be true.)

I love Reid’s ability to write interesting and complex characters. We follow Effy, a quiet and submissive girl who takes pink pills in order to decipher what is real and what isn’t. We meet Ianto Myrddin, the son of the mysterious and reclusive author, who wrote one of the most famous works of his time. Then finally, Preston Heloury, a smug and awkward boy who only wants to seek the truth.

There’s an overall mystery to the story regarding the legitimacy of Myrddin’s writing, and of the very foundation Myrddin lived. There’s a recurring theme of water and drowning, and symbols of anti-semitism. And finally, a beautiful love story.

This has easily become one of my favorite reads of the year.