A Study in Drowning

The story flows easily and beautifully. The writing style is mature yet beginner friendly. It's very engrossing and has a great, satisfying ending, slow burn romance and follows the rivals to lovers trope. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

Llegó un día antes y sin ningún daño 🤍

This book took me forever to read. The author has developed such a strong feeling of deep dread in the words of the book that reading this book made me anxious. Much like our character there’s not really any specific thing but the whole vibe feels off. You start to look over your shoulder never really sure what you’re afraid of but still afraid. Then I began to berate myself as this is clearly fiction so why do I feel so slimy but just as in the book fiction and real life are not as separate as we might expect. I loooooved the ending.

This was everything 😭😭😭 and it’s now one of my favourite books of all time. Here's my spoiler free review:A Study in Drowning is a dark academia novel that delves into the theme of women in literature, exploring how their contributions are often forgotten as they are perceived to have frivolous minds by the men in society. The novel features beautiful writing, and the use of water as a symbol is executed phenomenally.The author does a great job in exploring this theme through the main character, Effy, who has always believed in fairytales. Due to this belief, she greatly admires the work of Emrys Myrddin, particularly his book: Angharad. When Myrddin passes away, Effy is invited to redesign the author's estate. In the course of this project, Effy meets Preston, a literature student working on a thesis to prove that the work attributed to Myrddin is not his own. As the plot unfolds, these two begin to uncover various pieces that they must fit together to get closer to the truth.The plot in this book is a chef's kiss. I was hooked from the beginning to the end. One of the main reasons this book resonated with me is because of the main character: Effy. Throughout the entire reading experience, I felt like I was her; I connected with her on a deep, personal level. Even after finishing the book, I couldn't stop thinking about this book. I sat down and thought this was everything and so much more, so I decided to annotate it. There’s so many good quotes in this book that I highlighted, scenes with Effy and Preston together were so cute and wholesome. I have so much love for these two that I can't even explain. This book owns me and is now officially my favorite standalone ever. Going to end this review by giving it infinity stars. The whole entire book is my favorite but I thought I would share some of the quotes:“There was an intimacy to all violence, she supposed. The better you knew someone, the more terribly you could hurt them.”“When men fall into the sea, they drown. When women meet the water, they transform. It becomes vital to ask: is this a metamorphosis, or a homecoming?”“The only enemy is the sea.”“But I'll fight for you, Effy, I promise.”"I have faith in you-in both of us.”

Worth it

Sorry I am late on this review! The holidays, goal setting and working on my 2024 book journal have set me back a bit. I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me of Starling House (gothic fantasy). I am not going to lie but it took me a minute to get into it but once I did, I couldn't put it down.Effy has always been into fairytales. Her own fairytale is that she wants to be the only woman in the literature department of her college. In the meantime though, she has entered a contest to be able to redesign her favorite author's house (Emrys Myrddin) which is far far away from the problems that she is experiencing at school. Low and behold, she gets selected and decides to do it. She finds herself on a literal cliff with the assignment to rebuild this house to be able to survive another "drowning" if it happens. In the meantime, she meets Preston. Preston who is in the literature college. Preston who is from the other side of the war that is threatening to happen. Preston who recruits her to help him learn more about their author. Preston seems to think there is no way that he wrote the Fairy King. Effy wants to prove that he did. So they set out on a quest of sorts and find themselves liking each other more and more. We learn more about Effy's past and where she got her name. We meet the literal Fairy King and learn more about Emrys' past. Everything comes to a head and both Effy and Preston get what they want in the end.I liked the build up. I liked the prose and the incorporation of the Fairy King the story. It was whimsical and sad and tragic and GOOD. Like I said, this one took me a minute to get into but when I did it paid off. I highly recommend this one if you haven't already picked it up!