Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to review

A STUDY IN DROWNING by Ava Reid was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I'm so grateful to be one of its early readers. The story follows Effy, a young architecture student who finds solace in books and is allowed to redesign the house of the author of her favourite novel, Angharad. However, upon arrival at the estate, she slowly learns that what she once believed was the truth may have a hidden mystery and things aren't what they seem. She teams up with a literature student who happens also to be doing research at the state and slowly uncover the truth behind the publication of Anghard.

This is one of those books for the upper-YA audience. Similar to their previous works, I adore Reid’s writing style so much. They have such a beautiful way with words and no sentence is wasted. It also creates such an atmospheric tone to the story I truly felt a part of the world she created.

I very much appreciated the conversation it raised about women in academia and how their efforts are being taken advantage of and felt very pleased with Effy’s character development across the story.

While this book is a mystery first, it's one of those mystery books where it's not the reveal that makes it enjoyable, but the journey the characters take to uncover the mystery and how they develop as characters that I appreciated.

I also adored the relationship between Effy and Preston. Their banter and chemistry were phenomenal I had such a good time seeing their relationship grow.

I may need to reread this bit to fully delve deeper into this point, but this book is filled with so many motifs that add such a richer layer to the story that i very much loved

A STUDY IN DROWNING comes out this September and its perfect for readers who love the dark academia (as a thematic concept, not just aesthetics), magical realism and rich writing with a strong plot.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read this title. What a fantastic tale of power and mystery. I stayed up way too late just to find out how the story ended, I could not put it down.

I have always had a fascination with stories of the Fae and was pleasantly surprised to read such a unique take on magic, female power, and taking on the patriarchy. The descriptive detail of the various locations within the story really helped to immerse myself in the story and I felt immediately connected to our heroine Effy. I loved following along on her journey as she slowly finds her power and solves the mystery. I highly recommend this story, and the author Ava Reid (I cannot wait to read more of her work.). Wow.

What a magical gothic novel, I loved every moment of this! There were so many twists and turns, I couldn’t stop reading. Efforts is a strong and powerful, yet compassionate .

This was my first foray into dark academia! This book is part mystery and part academic rivals to lovers romance.

There are dark themes in this book: childhood trauma, sexual assault, sexism in academia. The entire setting feels foreboding, decrepit, and damp. I think the author did an incredible job conveying anxiety, PTSD, and trauma. The FMC, Effy, is someone who sees herself as transient and stuck in a role of surviving rather than thriving, her goals and dreams just out of her grasp.

I had a hard time getting through this book occasionally, just because I am a sensitive reader and the subject matter was really heavy.

I liked seeing the growth and empowerment of Effy. Most of the book I felt outrage for the female characters but the ending brought the plot together in a satisfying way and there was justice for Effy.

I loved this book. If you like gothic horror or loved Grimms fairytales as a child you'll probably love this. Our main character is both mildly irritating and someone you really root for. You wanna shake her but uts because you care for her. This books handles the things that happen to her so well. And I love the way it uses villains in this. This was a fun read that I zoomed through because there wasn't really any point where it was boring.

I was obsessed with the premise of the book. That said, 3% in, the only thing our MC has done is ... walked to the library, and asked about a book. It didn't hold my interest. This is so exposition heavy, and I don't see this doing well in our libraries.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperTeen for an eARC of A Study in Drowning!

TW: Mentions of Sexual Assault

Dark Academia meets Faerie magic and trickery meets Feminine Rage. Beautifully crafted, A Study in Drowning will take you on a psychologically thrilling and utterly romantic adventure. To find the truth about an author that is well loved and adored by Llyrians, Effy must team up with Preston, a half-Argantian who couldn’t possibly understand the devotion to the myths and lore of the Llyrians.

Honestly, one of the most incredible books I’ve read in a long time. I was sobbing by the end and I will most definitely be reading over and over again.

Tropes I love: Academic Rivals(ish) to Lovers, One Bed, Close Proximity

Beautifully written and deeply atmospheric. A Study in Drowning will likely haunt my dreams for a long time.

Many thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books — HarperTeen for the gifted ARC.

I should know by now to let books sit with me and steep a while before I review them.

“The danger was as ancient as the world. But if fairies and monsters were real, so were the women who defeated them.”

This book was the coming of age novel, but not in the same way that some coming-of-age novels are written. It felt true to the idea of the original bildungsroman, where in there is some deep trauma or naïveté, that must be dealt with, reflected on, and expressed, in a way that can allow the main character to rise above it. The main character had trauma, and was put into situations where she had no agency or choice, and she rose above it in a fierce and determined way that is inspiring. The male main character, was kind, and did not take away from her abilities and intellectualism, but actually encouraged her curiosity, and eventually earned her love in a natural way.

The theme of drowning was done on so many levels that it’s impossible to talk about all of them in a review, but the detail of hydrocephaly was so well done that I could not leave it out of this review.

This book was beautiful. It had the feeling of fairytale or a folklore retelling, and the lyrical prose was magnificent. This book was poignant, and intellectual, and also filled with the same magic that filled the plot. Everything was related back to water, but not in a way that was overdone, or overstated, if anything, it was poetic in its details of the slow death that water can bring, and the duality of the magnificence and the fearsomeness of the ocean. I know this is supposed to be a young adult debut for this author, but it reads more new adult, with pretty explicit sexual imagery, but it’s done so well that while explicit, it is still subtle. The love scene between the main characters had a tenderness and a quiet gentle longing complete with consent that, if you are slightly sentimental like me, would bring you to tears.

This book is very well written. It’s a little repetitive with some of the thoughts the MC has, and some of it is predictable but overall it kept me interested until the last page. The overly mean mother was clearly a necessary plot device, the environmental warnings were expertly crafted into the plot, and the concept of “believe women” and the lack of feminine agency was well done. I also enjoyed the idea that literary criticism was considered the highest level of intellectual study, with architecture/engineering being one of the lowest rungs. It was an interesting flip in a world that only currently values technology.

I am very thankful to have been given an eARC copy from NetGalley and my review will be 100% honest <3

This book was alright, I think I need to give it a better read during the summer when I'm less busy because I really struggled due to the plot but I stayed for the romance.

I really liked the Dark Academia setting, I thought the romance was cute and I LOVE <3 rivals to lovers. The romance was well done and didn't overpower the plot, though I was more focused on it. I was gonna give it a 3.5, but I bumped it up to a 4 bc I did enjoy it, but I think I would have enjoyed it much more if I had time to really delve into the environment and vibe.

YA gothic horror with a healthy dose of mystery and a splash of fantasy. Ava Reid continues to be one of the best writers today. Highly recommend!

I received an E-ARC through NetGalley, this review is my personal and honest opinion.

Interesting, complex realistic fantasy. The world Reid creates is complex, similar world to modern times with electricity and cars with an underlying belief of fae and their magic. I wish the religion and other aspects of the mysterious magic was elaborated on more and found myself a tad bit confused. The world is slowly built up over the whole book. The female main character is over coming trauma and is trying to find herself and find a way to find her confidence again. It's a beautiful written story with a underlying love story. I would classify this book upper ya. Overall a wonderful book and would recommend reading.

A Study in Drowning is an atmospheric, dark YA debut that takes its premise and runs with it.

While it’s technically a fantasy novel, I would categorize this as more literary in feel than a typical fantasy book. I think that it’s important to know that ahead of time, because my incorrect expectation definitely impacted my experience with the book.

Ava Reid’s writing is, as usual, so beautifully lyrical. There are so many quotes that I highlighted, and I can’t get enough of their dialogue. I think that given the themes of storytelling and truth in this book, that lyricism was very well used and a necessary element of the story.

The pacing was slow and deliberate, which is not what I usually like but it definitely was needed to build the level of tension that Reid achieved. If you like a fast paced book this is definitely not that, but for all the slow burn readers out there this will be right up your alley.

The characters in this were intriguing, and I’m sure that many people will absolutely love them, but it took me until about halfway through the book to fully feel connected to them. The first half of the book felt a bit… maybe disassociated is the right word? A little off, not quite 100% there. For reference, it took me a week to read the first 52% and a day to read the last 48%.

This book is beautiful, and there’s lots of things to love about it, but it wasn’t what I usually look for in a book that I love. I think that lots of people will really enjoy it though. Ava Reid’s YA debut will enthrall its ideal reader, I’m just not quite that person. 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

I will post my review on Instagram 1-2 weeks before publication, and will post my review to Amazon on publication day.

Conceptually okay(ish), but with one of those protagonists who has the self awareness of wet cardboard. Watching her figure out abundantly obvious things went from being mildly amusing to downright painful pretty quickly.

Ava Reid is a gorgeous writer and there is so much that I loved about her YA debut. The atmosphere was watery and gorgeous, the idea of losing your literary heroes is both deeply felt and timely and, as always, she writes trauma so deeply and empathetically. I l0ve her protagonists, always. All of that is enough to make it an easy four stars for me.

Where I struggled was the plot and then elements of the world building that did not seem as fully built. The plot twist was so clear to me that the pacing seemed to drag because I knew so early on that there was only one way it could go. the other place I struggled was the war happening in the background and the way it affected what we learned about Preston and his inner life. There are sentences throughout that suggest the racism Effie and the rest of their country feel toward the other side is bad and that suggest Preston has suffered because of that racism/nationalism and also that his home country is on the losing side of their war. It felt strange, even given the focus on Effie to give one specific type of trauma so much more weight than another. That made me more aware of how little we saw or felt the effects of that war which made it feel like set-dressing. I didn't love that, but as I said, the things she does well she does so well and her writing is so beautiful that I still would recommend this to people shopping on the older end of YA.

This fascinating gothic mansion/haunted house theme has a twisty mystery and powerful feminist vibes! The horror, mystery, enemies-to-lovers romance, paranormal, and psychological thriller genres are perfectly blended at the same portal. The riveting mystery makes you guess until the end as the spine-tingling, eerie, drowning house pushes you to hide under blankets. I devoured it in a few hours! The execution of the story was well-crafted. The myths, folklore, urban legend parts, and shocking, challenging backstory make the book extra captivating and unputdownable!

I want to give A Study in Drowning a thousand stars! This gothic dark academia thriller was just the story I needed. Full of mystery and allure and an intriguing plot, this one kept me glued from the beginning. I especially loved the setting of the Bottom One Hundred. It was dark, creepy and mysterious and kept me on my toes. I haven’t had much luck enjoying dark academia in the past but this one left me craving more. Excellent read.

I enjoyed it! The gothic elements were impecable. I kept wondering if there would be a twisted magical creature waiting around the corner. (Or was it just the house playing tricks on me?)

I loved that the mystery had to do with shady literary figures (I predicted the ending after the halfway point, but it was still interesting to read the outcome).

There's mystery, romance & fantasy. But at its core, theres love for the stories that have been able to change our lives. And it helps that it takes place in an isolated crumbling mansion full of secrets!

Very eerie, fans of dark academia will love the vibes.

A Study In Drowning is one of the most whimsical and nauseating Dark Academia novels I’ve ever read. Its themes of sexism, twisted fairytales, academic enemies to lovers, and distortion of reality are just some of the things that grabbed me. From the moment I started this book, I could not put it down.
Effy is the only girl in the architecture college and she is very obsessed with this author, Emrys Myrddin, who recently passed away. Unexpectedly she wins a contest to create an architectural plan to help fix that author’s house. Once she arrives at the house not everything is what it seems. There’s another student, a literature student, named Preston there and the house appears to be rotting away on the cliff, sinking.
Ava Reid’s writing is smooth and sharp at the same time like the ocean. I love books that talk about books. Reid’s descriptions of the school’s library and of Effy’s love of literature were some of my favorite aspects of the novel. The execution of this story was even more impressive than its concept, at times I had no idea where the story was going and I loved it. The layers and complexity of these pages hold shows Reid’s mastery of writing. I will be geeking about this novel for many years to come.
Effy has a very special place in my heart. She goes after what she wants, even if it means being the only girl, and oftentimes she gets no support or gets hurt when she doesn’t deserve it. Preston and Effy's dynamic as academic rivals is classic and done brilliantly but has an element that is quite original. Preston really comes to understand the struggles Effy has to deal with being a woman in the academic world. Their bond is one of my favorite things but honestly, I have a lot of favorite parts.
The feeling that A Study in Drowning gave me was truly surreal. It felt a bit horrific at times (in the best way possible) but mostly it was powerful. This story will go on to take others many lives the way it has taken over mine. The best thing you can do for yourself is pick it up on September 19th!
Thank you to Netgalley for giving me a chance to read this early in exchange for my honest thoughts.

DNF but I loved the concept… I will definitely be looking back into this read in the future because I do think I would enjoy it. Sometimes I just have to be in a certain mood for certain books (mood reader problems)