Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - A Study in Drowning

I rated this book a 5.5 out of 10. There are many elements to this novel I enjoy, but I wish each had been explored more. By dropping the adolescent romance, more effort could be dedicated to expanding the settings and main plotlines.

Ava Reid writes beautiful phrases and sprinkles them throughout the chapters. Her artistic metaphors rest on the boundry of remaining applicable. The wording captures the reader, but any further, the intention would be lost. She uses imagery to convey emotion and the characters' mindsets.

The characters fell a bit flat for me. Each character was one dimensional and served only one purpose throughout the book. Preston exists to be an on-paper protective love interest. Effy is constantly reminding you how misogyny, sexism, and her beauty overshadow her genius. Every other character means nothing to me.

Effy's low-key racist. Her xenophobia is front and center, but we are
overlooking that? Why?! Time and time again, she shows her
academic rivalry" is really just her prejudice against Argantians.

I wanted more from the fairy-tale.

We are to believe the Fairy King is real, so why are there literally ZERO other elements involved? Everything points to Effy actually having mental health issues where she has "episodes." If Angharad was a ghost/spirit or if Effy would have seen an alternate reality through the hagstones, these would be easy places to incorporate fantasy aspects.

Is Effy a reliable narrator? Honestly, I'm left thinking the fantasy aspect is really part of Effy's imagination. She experienced great trauma from her mother, and her obsession with Myrddin's novel plays a role in her coping. I'm left to feel she really has mental health issues, and maybe the pink pills are good for her.

I know that's not the conclusion I'm "supposed" to reach, but...

I wish there had been more development in the setting and the characters. The countries, the North and South, the school, the house, the land... I could never picture them. The only thing I was able to imagine was the door to the basement. There is this whole world Reid introduced in this book, but we never get a clear picture of what it's like.

I really wanted to love this book. Part of me feels I would have enjoyed it more as a physical book because I would get bored listening to it. I never got the feeling of being immersed in the story.

I love the moody vibes Reid is able to create. The feel and the way she conveys emotion is beautiful. I wish the attention to the setting had matched. I want to visualize where the characters are and how the North/South/Bottom Hundred look and compare to each other. I wanted to pull more from the text.

Content Warnings

mynameisrebecca's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense

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

4.0

This book could have benefitted so much from a prologue or map of sorts. The world building is kind of choppy and it's really hard to figure out the geography and customs of the various people. The time frame is confusing to me as well - it's clearly meant to be a fantasy world, but it's around 150-200AD yet they have modern conveniences... Almost wish that was left out entirely. Also Effy's character is middling, and it rests a lot on her mental illness as a plot device rather than part of her character which sits weirdly with me. The story however is rich and the rest of the characters are well done.

Content Warnings

lila_still_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

graco's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.75

Nice concept and I enjoyed the atmosphere and exploration of myth, storytelling and lengend but overall it was pretty sloppilty done. There were a ton implausible plot points to further the story and the climatic resolution/conflict was so non-climatic it was laughable. Lots of things weren't explained well or given extensive backstories (characters, magic system, reasons for the geopolitical conflict, history). The main character, Effy was also just causually nationalistic and xenophobic and I thought maybe there would be a learning moment but she but she seemed to just get over it because she was in love.

Content Warnings

darlingmoira's review

Go to review page

adventurous 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? Yes

2.75

This is not the book for me. The writing style is good, it allowed me to finish the book despite really struggling with the story.
This book is talked about as an enemies to lovers but once again hugely misses the mark! The “enemies” part relies on the main character being openly racist to her counterpart. For the majority of the book she talks and thinks about how her soon to be lover shouldn’t even be allowed to study at her school.
The plot could have been really well done if it removed that aspect of the story completely.
I have to acknowledge that the “feminist” aspects of this story are well done. How the main character handles a SA situation internally and then makes progress with dealing with it is portrayed very realistically. Everything about that part of the story is well done but otherwise book would have just been a 2 and nothing more.

Content Warnings

amyalwaysbooked's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

hello_kara's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious sad medium-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? Yes

0.25

This is the longest review I have ever written, mostly driven by rage as I hated this book and the more I think about it the more I dislike it.

“Midnight was a fairytale thing. She didn’t know if Preston had been thinking about that when he promised it. But Effy was remembering all of the curses that turned princesses back to peasant girls as soon as the bells struck twelve. Why was it always girls whose forms could not be trusted? Everything could be taken away from them in an instant.”

“I suppose that’s partly why I don’t have much faith in the notion of permanence. 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.”

I liked those quotes, that’s about it.

World building was a bit confusing, and it was difficult for me to pin down a time-setting. Advertised as “Part historical fantasy, part rivals-to-lovers romance, part Gothic mystery.” It’s set in a fantasy UK inspired world, maybe from the 60s? 🤷🏼‍♀️ There’s trains, cars, universities, tanks and guns, CT scanners, phones, but also folk magic and changelings. Their country in the South is at war with the one in the North, for unknown reasons. Universities admit women, but they really only go to get husbands and aren’t allowed entry into the one discipline reversed above all others that Effy actually wants to study: Literature. Her scores were so good she should have gotten in, but because of misogyny she wasn’t admitted. She goes and studies Architecture instead (apparently the second most prestigious discipline.) As it so happens she is the ONLY woman in that college.

Effy has a woman roommate, who attends the music college and has a girlfriend, which is never addressed again after the first chapter. But also there’s major purity culture. Effy is always being hit on by the men at college, who are simultaneously aroused and disgusted by her, calling her whore. Why? Oh the Dean of her college has sexually assaulted her, so obviously she must’ve slept her way in to the college.

It’s not all bad though! (🙄)She sees a poster for a competition to design a remodel of her (late) favorite author’s home. The author in question is now instated as a Sleeper, one of seven revered national storytellers believed to have magic that protects their country. There’s a museum with the corpses of the Sleepers on display, which is the countries biggest tourist attraction, (and yet belief in Sleeper magic is 50/50? Is it real or not?! If it’s just an old wives tale then why do the bodies not rot, why would they induct a new dead guy onto the roster?)

But I digress, Effy goes to the university library to do some research on the author (even though she knows his works ‘better than anyone’) and finds that all the books have been checked out by a Literature student. She’s pissed, and very jealous. He has a “Northern” name, and she wonders why he gets to study her Southern hero author and not her. Thus begins the “rivalry.” She also thinks to herself that none of the other architecture students would be worthy of winning, because she’s the only one who truly loves that author’s works, despite him being a national treasure.

And suddenly she wins! A first year student who’s failing half her classes and hates architecture! Her roommate calls her out on this and says don’t you think that’s kind of weird? Nope! She’s like 18/19 years old, with no support from family (her mom like actually hates her and basically tells her to never call again), and decides what could possibly go wrong?! She gets approval to take time off of school to go to the end of the world to work on designs for this house (but wait, I thought you had to submit your design plan for the competition??) Once she gets to the house ~SURPRISE~ she meets the Lit student who borrowed all those books! Preston. So she hates him right away and is downright mean to him. The homeowner/son of dead author starts talking to her about the plans and construction etc.(SHES NOT A FUCKING GENERAL CONTRACTOR) He’s really weird about her being around Preston, but also makes suggestive remarks towards her.

If the book wanted me to think “men are trash,” it succeeded. It was so misogynistic. Effy is not allowed to study literature on account of women’s feeble and trivial little brains. Annoyingly, just about every man Effy comes into contact with tries to make a move on her because she’s just so ‘otherworldly beautiful,’ but in the same breath call her whore. Preston is the love interest, but he gives major “I’m just brutally honest!” vibes. He gets brownie points from Effy because he didn’t immediately come on to her (ladies, the bar is SUBTERRANEAN.) But at one point even Preston was basically like ‘yeah I totally would’ve ducked you already if I didn’t actually like you’ (wtf?)

There was a definite creepy vibe, with the setting being a decrepit manor that was falling apart and into the sea. And yet… Water had overtaken the foundation, but it’s also up on the cliffs? So that was confusing. And the whole architecture competition, but she didn’t have designs drafted or finished? How did she win? Oh never mind, it doesn’t matter because it was all a plot by the Fairy King to claim her.

I read a lot of fantasy, so I can generally adjust my sense of realism accordingly. But this one just didn’t land for me, the inconsistency in whether or not magic of any kind was real in this world really bothered me. For a while I thought we were going to get to the end and find out she had hallucinated the whole thing!

Effy has been on meds for most of her life, due to nightmares and visions of the Fairy King. She is a changeling, her mother left her for dead by the river, and the Fairy King came to claim her. But her mother came back a took her before she could fully be claimed. In the process she lost her ring finger from fairy magic. So she found comfort in the fairy tale, feeling ‘not like the other girls.’ She knew the story in and out, loved it, saw herself in it. It was her entire personality.

But why is this story the country’s national treasure? This fairy tale about a woman who is stolen away by the Fairy King and forced to marry him, written from a woman’s POV? This story that got the male author credited with writing it into like the National Hall of Fame of a country that won’t allow women to study literature because it is ‘beyond their capacity to comprehend.’

~spoilers~ it was written by a woman. A hidden truth that would never have been uncovered if it were not for Effy. She and Preston write up their findings to present to the college. She gets into the college of Literature for her contribution, and simultaneously gets her former Dean fired.

Effy sees the true author of the story. She asks her to autograph her well worn copy of the book, they smile, triumphant. The end.

Content Warnings

More...

Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

maresuju's review against another edition

writingandwhimsy's review

justnicole's review

daydaybookbay's review against another edition

mynameisrebecca's review

lila_still_reads's review against another edition

graco's review against another edition

darlingmoira's review

amyalwaysbooked's review against another edition

hello_kara's review against another edition