A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid – Review

Published: September 19, 2023

Publisher: HarperTeen

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Pages: 373 (eBook)

My Rating: 4 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. She’s had no choice. Since childhood, she’s been haunted by visions of the Fairy King. She’s found solace only in the pages of Angharad – author Emrys Myrddin’s beloved epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, and then destroys him.

Effy’s tattered, dog-eared copy is all that’s keeping her afloat through her stifling first term at Llyr’s prestigious architecture college. So when Myrddin’s family announces a contest to design the late author’s house, Effy feels certain this is her destiny.

But Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task: a musty, decrepit estate on the brink of crumbling into a hungry sea. And when Effy arrives, she finds she isn’t the only one who’s made a temporary home there. Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar, is studying Myrddin’s papers and is determined to prove her favorite author is a fraud.

As the two rival students investigate the reclusive author’s legacy, piecing together clues through his letters, books, and diaries, they discover that the house’s foundation isn’t the only thing that can’t be trusted. There are dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspiring against them – and the truth may bring them both to ruin.

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Autumn is quickly approaching and, even though it’s still 80+ degrees where I live, I crave the autumnal, academia vibes. A Study in Drowning provides that atmosphere in spades – moldering manors, slowly drowning towns, and hints of an alternate reality at the edge of your vision. And if that’s not enough to sway you, it’s also a book about books.

Effy Sayre is dealing with a scandal and failing out of her architecture curriculum until she submits a design to the estate of a preeminent author who has just passed away. While she feels like she’s running away from her problems, this could also be a chance to salvage her academic career even though it’s in a remote location along the crumbling southern coast. Once there she finds she’s not the only university student at Hiraeth Manor. A boy named Preston Héloury from the literature college is also there putting together notes for his thesis, where he seems to be trying to defame the recently deceased and nationally beloved Emrys Myrddin. The two are immediately at odds because Effy dearly loves Myrddin’s works, though like rational folks, once they spend some time together their opinions of one another change. They begin working together on a scholarly article, determined to find the truth about Emrys Myrddin and the authorship of his most well known work, Angharad. 

Though this is set in a fantastical world, there’s more of the idea of magic present in this tale than actual magic. Effy gets glimpses of what she thinks is the Fairy King, but it’s unclear if she’s hallucinating, as she has a history of seeing things that aren’t there and takes medication for it. There’s a great deal of folklore surrounding the Bottom Hundred area where Hiraeth Manor is located and there’s a vague protective magic attributed to figures called the Sleepers, but little information is given regarding them. Though light on magic, the story is absolutely dripping with evocative writing and some rather interesting excerpts from Myrddin’s poems and stories. This is, in my opinion, something that fans of The Night Circus might enjoy though the setting is certainly a bit darker.

While I loved the writing style and the general setting, I must admit I did not care for Effy much at all at the beginning of the story. She has her tragic backstory and is presented as a girl trying very hard not to drown in her circumstances, but that’s not why I didn’t care for her. She was so hostile and accusatory towards Preston when she first met him and then she pried into people’s business shamelessly while also getting angry when people asked her probing questions. I did grow to like her more towards the latter half of the book, but I found Preston to be my preferred main character. He was scholarly and smug, but he was also kind and patient even when Effy was at her most frustrating.

This was a surprising book, mostly because I had no idea what to expect from it when picking it up. I snagged a copy mostly because I liked the cover and it mentioned a Fairy King – what did I really have to lose except time? If you’re a fan of academically inclined books that are practically overflowing with *vibes and atmosphere* you should definitely check this out. Though it is labeled as young adult, I would say that it skews toward the older end of the YA demographic, as both the characters are in their first year of college. Overall, I enjoyed this and wouldn’t mind checking out Ava Reid’s popular adult book, Juniper & Thorn at some point.