Publish date: September 19, 2023
Genre: Fantasy, Gothic, Mystery, YA Dark Academia
Content warnings: parental abuse and neglect, psychological abuse, sexual abuse (implied and off-page), and mental illness including hallucinations, suicidal ideation, and PTSD.
Short description:
A Study in Drowning follows Effy Sayre, the only girl in an elite architecture school, who wins a contest to redesign the crumbling estate of her literary hero, Emrys Myrddin. But when she arrives at the manor, she finds not just decay and stormy seas, but a sharp, stubborn literature student named Preston who claims Myrddin didn’t write his most famous work.
As the two dig into the author’s past, they uncover long-buried truths about stolen stories, silenced women, and a darkness lurking both in the house and in Effy’s memories. It’s a gothic, feminist story about reclaiming voice, surviving trauma, and deciding whose version of the truth we believe.
Beautifully written, hands down. What I loved most is how the Reid didn’t shy away from real things: abuse, erasure, silencing, the way institutions protect powerful men while branding women as unstable. Effy’s journey felt raw and real. Her trauma was woven into every chapter, and the way the story blurs reality with folklore made it even more unsettling. I was a bit confused at first tbh, blending the magic with reality. The symbolism in this book is layered and smart. Drowning, decay, storms, even the Fairy King, they’re all literal and emotional, and haunting.
I also appreciate how literature and architecture though two fields that seem worlds apart, are shown here as deeply similar and connected. Both are ways of telling stories. Both are shaped by what we build and what we bury.
-1 bec some parts dragged a little, some parts also got flowery, IYGWIM. But the message, and the emotion made up for it. ✨
When I picked up A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, I expected a lush, moody dark academia read. What I got was something deeper – a gothic unraveling of trauma, legacy, and the lies we’re taught to respect and worship. This was the Book of the Month pick for July for the Bookish Bunch Book Club. If you are interested to join us on our next reads, just message me!
The story follows Effy Sayre, the only female student in an elite architecture program, who wins a contest to redesign the seaside manor of her literary idol, Emrys Myrddin. She didn’t want to be an architect, really. She wanted to pursue literature which is kind of highest form of education in their world hence women are not allowed to study. Silly. I know. It’s not unfamiliar, though. At least in this world, they are limited to some options, but in our real, awful world, there was time women were not allowed to go to school or to study at all. Yep.
Anyways, going back to Effy -This wonderful opportunity turns into a nightmare (kind of) where secrets and mysteries were unraveled, ruining her respect for Myrddin. Thanks to this beautiful man, P. Héloury.
At the heart of this novel is Angharad, a fictional national epic supposedly written by Myrddin. Effy’s love for the book is almost sacred, it carried her through years of quiet grief and abuse. Only to realize that this novel and it’s connection to her idol was just a huge manipulation and weird obsession for power, which I really don’t understand how shallow these man brains were.
This book excels in showing how systems (academic, literary, societal, even political) protect the powerful and silence the vulnerable. Its critique of misogyny, abuse, and the myth of male genius is pointed, yet delivered with a lyrical, atmospheric tone that sinks into your bones and hearts, tbh.
This is just book one, and I am super excited to get my hands and eyes and hearts and soul on the next one. I hope it won’t disappoint!
The “drowning” in this story works on multiple levels, I believe. There’s the literal danger of the sea, the manor sliding into it, and the haunting presence of the Fairy King, a mythic figure said to drag women into the waves. But there’s also emotional drowning which I think shows Effy’s suffocating trauma, her isolation being in the middle of something vast and scary, her unraveling under pressure and disbelief, and I feel there’s more that I never thought of….lol.
What makes the novel so compelling is how every symbol feels both real and metaphorical. The manor, which we thought was safe and cozy but apparently dark and rotting. The storms, the water, even the bells which appear to me as different manifestations of trauma, pain, and suffering. The Fairy King physically manifests at points, but to me, he reads most powerfully as psychological. A manifestation of inherited myth, silenced truth, and male power built to scare women off. Which is odd, cos guys often forget these girls are the reasons why they even have life, YKWIM?
One theme I loved is how the book draws parallels between literature and architecture. They seem like opposites like one emotional, the other structural. But I see them both as forms of art, built with intention, shaping how we see the world. Both tell stories. Both can and can be manipulated, or preserved, or destroyed.
There were chapters that felt a little bit fragging. Maybe they were too long? I read mostly on my Kindle, so I see the time left for the chapter. 36 mintues for one chapter feels long, I guess. Still, I found this read to be a rich, emotional, and thought-provoking. It’s a story about survival, yes, but also about rewriting the narrative, claiming the truth, and refusing to drown in someone else’s legend. A really good book to recommend and to discuss. I’m glad we picked this up for our BOTM.
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Here are other reads if you liked or interested with A Study in Drowning:
Click the book covers to go to Goodreads.
Return to the immersive, lush, and dreamlike world of the instantly bestselling dark academia fantasy A Study in Drowning as the aftermath of their first discovery pulls Effy and Preston on a final adventure and brings their haunting love story to its end in this stunning sequel and final book in the duology.
All stories come to an end.
Effy learned that when she defeated the Fairy King. Even though she may never know exactly what happened at Hiraeth, she is free of her nightmares and is able to pen a thesis with Preston on the beloved national fairy tale Angharad. She has finally earned a spot at the literature college, making her the first woman in history to enroll.
But some dreams are dangerous, especially when they come true. The entire university—and soon the entire nation—is waiting for her to fail. With the Fairy King defeated and Myrddin’s legacy exposed, Effy can no longer escape into fantasy. Who is she without her stories?
With Effy under threat, Preston is surprised to discover a rage simmering inside him, ringing in his ears like bells. He begins to dream of a palace under the sea, a world where he is king—visions that start to follow him even in waking.
As the war between Llyr and Argant explodes, Effy and Preston find themselves caught in the crossfire: Effy losing her dreams and Preston losing himself in his.
Are dreams ever truly just dreams?
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.
Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?