SuitabookA Study in Drowning
Ava Reid
- Reading
- Consider checking in before and after the most frightening sections, particularly material involving harassment, assault memories and drowning. Pause to discuss boundaries and support rather than treating distress as merely gothic atmosphere.
- Themes
- Power, misogyny and consent: Effy faces unwanted advances, harassment and bullying, while the story addresses consent where an older man holds institutional power over her. The book takes a critical view of this.
- Fear, self-trust and support: Effy begins fearful and distrustful of her instincts, then confronts frightening experiences and seeks support from someone she trusts. The book presents this favourably.
- Gothic stories and drowning imagery: The fantasy uses ghosts, night terrors, threatening apparitions and repeated accounts of drowning and other deaths to create danger and unease. The book leaves its stance open to more than one reading.
- Worth knowing
- Content needing attention includes forced kissing causing bleeding, sexual harassment, bullying, assault memories, night terrors, ghosts, drowning and disintegration, a described sex scene, heavy alcohol use, smoking and pills used for sleep.