It's dark academia season, babies!
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen Ava Reid on Instagram. They've been posting reels about their upcoming release, A Study in Drowning that make you instantly want to read the book--reels of long golden curls tied in black bows, leather bound tomes, lit candles flickering, and a roaring sea, so many of which also referenced dark academia, enemies to lovers, and gothic fairytales. Thank all the bookish gods, NetGalley came through with an approved ARC and I got to reading!
A Study in Drowning is going to be relatable to an entire generation that doesn't even realize it yet. Effy Sayre is a voracious reader, but has her beloved book: Angharad, written by the late Emrys Myrddin. It's a tale about a woman, Angharad, who the Fairy King falls in love with...then she destroys him. Effy has read it so many times that she can nearly recite it cover to cover...well, the cover of a normal copy. Her copy barely has a cover left, it's so worn and well-loved. Unfortunately, women aren't allowed into the literature college of her country, so she's forced into the architecture college instead. She's miserable, being sexually assaulted by her advisor, demeaned by the entirety of her class (all of which are male), and existing as a burden on her mother; Effy has been deemed "mad" by her family and her doctors, because she's been plagued by visions of things that aren't there. She's got pink pills that keep the visions away...barely, during the day, and sleeping pills to knock her out at night. One day, though, she thinks all of her dreams may have come true when she is selected by Emrys Myrddin's son himself to redesign the Myrddin estate. When she arrives, she meets Preston Héloury, a literature college student who is there to review Emrys' study and collect documents that could be valuable for the college, and Ianto Myrddin, Emrys' super weird son. Oh, and the house she's supposed to redesign is literally crumbling off a cliff into the sea.
Effy quickly realizes that Preston isn't exactly there to "study" Myrddin's documents...he's there to essentially discredit Myrddin, who, Preston thinks, didn't actually write Angharad. And Preston's thoughts are valid: how did the son of illiterate fisher-people pen the greatest epic of their day? Even the thought is utterly devastating to Effy, who has all but worshipped the ground that Emrys Myrddin walks on for her entire life. Here's where things get so relatable: I spent more than half of my life totally engrossed in the Harry Potter franchise, totally rooted in the knowledge that JK Rowling was a genius who could do no wrong. Even the thought that she wasn't absolutely perfect was something that would have rocked my world. Then, she came out as bigoted trash, and my entire world was turned upside down. How did someone who created a world, and who crafted stories that quite literally shaped the person that I am today, turn out so opposite of all of the things that her words taught me to be?! It's melodramatic, sure, but it's taken years to cope with that kind of disappointment. So, knowing that even the thought of that disappointment could be possible for Effy? Yeah, it strikes a chord.
This book was everything that I hoped it would be and nothing that I expected. It's all of the dark academia I wanted, but also feels like it takes place in the world of a sea shanty--without being lighthearted...because this story is HEAVY. There are so many dark themes that Effy has to deal with: mental health issues and stigmas surrounding them (and not being believed about her truth), sexism and sexual assault, the potential fall of a hero, and a world being ravaged and swallowed in the sea.
It. Was. Perfect. You'll ache for Effy in so many ways, mostly by how isolated she is, and has always been, because it's been so ingrained in her: she is odd, so she is other. She isn't like us, so she must be kept on the outside. It's gut wrenching and awful. Preston also has a pretty tragic history, although you don't get as much of his perspective.
The last sentence of the book sent chills down my spine. Actual chills.
There are trigger warnings to be mindful of: sexual assault, someone in a person of power exploiting those considered "beneath" them, sexism, parental rejection, parent death, amputation, (the remaining trigger warnings that follow this warning are SPOILERY but important) children abandoned to die, child sacrifice, and near-death by drowning (a character is SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER chained and staked to a wall in a room slowing filling with water).
Ava Reid is a master with words, and I will be reading Juniper and Thorn very soon. It's been on my shelf for so long (the curse of the neverending TBR, right?!), I just didn't know what I was missing!
Please, do yourself a favor and preorder a copy of A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid here or here before it's released on September 19. You will not regret it.
Love and driving fast with Preston,
Mandy
Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley and have voluntarily written this review with my honest feedback. If you purchase a copy using my Bookshop.org affiliate link above, I will receive a small commission and you'll support local indies! If you purchase a copy using my Amazon affiliate link above, I will receive a small commission which I will use to justify my literary addictions and to spoil my dogs (probably).