Charlotte Kersten

Year published: 2023

Category: YA fantasy

Representation: f/f, minor side characters

Summary: 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.

My thoughts:  Once again an Ava Reid book sounds like it will be a 100% Perfect Fit for me, and once again there are some things about the final product that I really love but a number of others that just don’t quite work for me.

The element that I have the most to say about is here definitely the romance. For starters, I would reeeeeally hesitate to categorize this as enemies-to-lovers. For the first third of the book, Effy is just petty, spiteful and rude to Preston because he represents everything that she is being denied at college due to gender discrimination and Preston just kind of…takes it. She also makes a number of prejudiced/stereotyped comments about him being part Argantian (from the country that her country is currently at war with). My problem with this, to be clear, is not just that it *happens*. I’m fine with a story where a character who has been through a lot lashes out at someone who it’s safe to lash out at! Where it fails to work for me, though, is the way that the relationship then randomly and kind of awkwardly transitions from all the nasty, petty sniping to what is clearly supposed to be a deeply delicate, tender and respectful romance that is all about trauma sensitivity and support.

Effy apologizes to Preston eventually, but for me it feels like far too little, too late because the relationship has already inexplicably developed way past the enemies-to-lovers point without any of it being addressed. Also, his responses to her apologies are really bizarre and funny? She’s like “Uh, sorry that I was deeply unkind to you without knowing you at all and continuously stereotyped your identity in the most uncharitable way possible. I guess that was kind of awful of me.” And then he’s just like “No, babe, [One Direction voice] I wish you could see yourself the way that I see you. You were just challenging me intellectually (note: that is definitely not all she was doing lol) and also I know you’ve been stereotyped too as a girl at college.” That element of Effy’s own prejudice is never meaningfully unpacked, and while it could have been a great chance to look at how someone struggling with their own oppression can still judge and hurt others in similar ways (and may even do so because of how they are being hurt just like Effy does at the start!), it just doesn’t quite ever go there.

Otherwise, the romance is more substantial than the one in Juniper & Thorn, but another big problem for me is that Preston just seems so vague and lifeless – I never really felt a true sense of what made him distinct or complex or interesting as a character at all. He’s a cynic who loves talking about his academic theories and he is kind and respectful to Effy when literally every other man in the book is a lascivious slobbering monster. There is one scene where he tells Effy about his father’s death, and that’s pretty much the most significant spotlight moment that he gets throughout the book.

The other thing that I feel obligated to mention about the romance is that Effy and Preston choose the absolute worst time possible to have sex and then leisurely whisper sweet nothings/ fall asleep afterwards!!!! There is a terrifying weirdo skulking around a house that’s being ripped apart by a massive sea storm, and if they don’t drive away quickly enough, the roads will wash out and they’ll be stuck with said terrifying weirdo and said house that’s being ripped apart by a massive sea storm!! And they just have sex and peacefully fall asleep with all this going on!!! (Edit: also I’m perpetually haunted by Preston saying “I’ll be kind to you” pre-sex. HAUNTED I SAY) In conclusion: while there were certainly some sweet moments, the romance really, really did not work for me overall.

Effy’s perspective as a trauma survivor and someone struggling with intense mental health issues is viscerally depicted in a way that definitely feels extremely raw, powerful and familiar to me. This was one of my favorite things about Juniper & Thorn, and it absolutely stands here, too. You really feel her sense of ever-present anxiety, how every moment precariously teeters on the verge of panic and disaster. She constantly doubts what she experiences and blames and denigrates herself because that is what the world has done to her as it has forced to her survive through misogyny and abuse.

While she ends the book in a place that is empowered and moving towards healing and happiness and I LOVE that, I do wish that those changes could have emerged more gradually over the course of the book. I don’t really feel that there is much of a substantial developmental arc in this direction until she dives for the hidden chest and then defeats the Fairy King (quick detour to say that the final reveal/confrontation with the Fairy King happens and then resolves soo incredibly quickly! [Edit 2: honestly, the more I think about everything with the Fairy King, the less sense it all makes and the more disappointing it is]). In fact, what arc there is seems to be largely about her deciding not to trust/believe in herself until she suddenly finds out that the Fairy King is real. The book also states explicitly during the climax that her romance with Preston is the thing that primarily changes her and gives her something to fight for, which isn’t a trope that I love but ymmv.

I predicted the plot twist about Angharad’s authorship in either the first or second chapter but I’m undecided about whether I should pat myself on the back for that since it’s a YA mystery!!! I do really, really, really love the eventual outcome with Angharad becoming free after a lifetime of fighting and entrapment and the truth of her authorship finally out in the world. Effy is able to break the cycle of women’s lives and stories getting taken over by ruthless men, and both women are able to move into the future with hope and autonomy and power. You just KNOW that’s Charlotte Catnip, and the final pages of the book absolutely made me all weepy and heart-full.

There’s a bit where Angharad says this: “I wanted one girl, only one, to read my book and feel that she was understood, and I would be understood in return.” It’s a beautiful line and a beautiful message – it’s one that fully resonates for me, and I would be surprised if Angaharad wasn’t speaking a bit for Reid in this moment too. A Study in Drowning is definitely a “love letter to books” book and I can feel the author’s passion in showing how stories can help us survive reality and how important it is for us to be able to truly own our stories and voices.

As for the writing itself, I stand by what I said in my review of Juniper & Thorn: I mostly think Reid’s language is quite strong and evocative. But MY GOD there is a crazy amount of repetition that totally could have been edited out. You could die of alcohol poisoning halfway through the book if you decided to take a shot every time Effy blushes – I swear I’m not exaggerating when I say that I noticed it happening almost every page. Preston is also quite the blusher as the romance kicks into gear. As far as the similes and metaphors go, there seem to be a lot less semi-questionable ones here than there were in Juniper & Thorn, but there are still quite a lot of them. I don’t know the actual Rules of Good Prose but my general feeling is that an author’s writing should always try to serve the story, so if it’s repetitive or jarring enough to break immersion, it might not be doing its job as well as possible. Who knows if I’m right about that though ha ha!

I don’t think it’s up for debate that this book is absolutely dripping with atmosphere, and I think that is another place where Reid truly excels. You’ve got crumbling cliffside manors, waterlogged chests, secret rooms, cryptic hidden journals, melancholic poetry, isolated villages, the raging sea, wicked fairies, thick sweaters, foggy roads, pounding rain, hot drinks and pie – everything a girl could want as far as vibes go. At least for me, though, too many other things just didn’t land quite right, and I’m genuinely sad to say that.