Review Detail

We readers like to torture ourselves with dark, depressing stories about awful things happening to perfectly nice people. It’s a true thing. And usually, these terrible stories make us massively uncomfortable, and we tend to wind up with a very severe case of The Feels. These are the books that crush our hearts and make us mope in bed all day. These are the books that give the most impressive book hangovers.

Drowning Instinct is one of those books.

Beyond the painful reading, however, Drowning Instinct is a book that makes ugly things beautiful, that makes you question right from wrong. The taboo is made to look, if not okay, at least understandable. And while this goes on, this book is very self-aware; it knows that what it portrays is controversial, and so it goes about its topics in the most straightforward manner possible, not stopping to sensationalize or exaggerate. And because of that, Ilsa J. Bick was able to tell Jenna’s story in a raw way that felt real and full of authentic emotion.

In some ways, Drowning Instinct reminded me a lot of Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma—instead of incest, the taboo covered in this novel is consensual sex between a child and an adult (student/teacher), but the feeling was the same. Yet where Suzuma approached her story like a soap-opera, and milked her characters for every ounce of emotional angst they had, Bick did the opposite. Jenna’s story, told directly to the reader in her own words, is organic and grew naturally, making it that much more impacting in the end game.

Jenna, the novel’s protagonist and narrator, is 16 years old and hasn’t had a great life. She’s suffered from sexual, physical and verbal abuse; and she’s just spent 4 months in a psych ward for her practice of self-harm. She starts over at a new school, hoping to leave the past behind. If this were a typical YA novel, Jenna would meet a super-sexy boy in her English class, and they would swear their eternal devotion after some teenage angst. But Drowning Instinct isn’t a typical YA novel; Jenna catches the interest of a male, but it’s in the form of her chemistry teacher, Mitch Anderson. And from there, this book is one emotional ride to a stunning conclusion.

To be completely honest, student/teacher relationships are not something I enjoy in fiction. Ever. But the way Ilsa J. Bick approached it was respectful and, as I said, self-aware. Because of the way things between Jenna and Mr. Anderson played out, it was hard to condemn their relationship, even while Jenna herself admitted it was unhealthy, illegal, and very, very wrong. At the same time, there was not a doubt in my mind that the two of them were in love—honest-to-goodness love. And that is why this book is so brilliant; it takes everything you believe and think you know and turns it upside down. Because how could I possibly hate the actions of two people who were genuinely good for each other, in spite of the less than perfect circumstances?

This is what Forbidden tried to do, but couldn’t. This is why Bick gets major respect from me. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to write about two people who were in a relationship that was every definition of wrong, but was still somehow right. Honestly, it was hard enough to read about it.

Obviously, Drowning Instinct will not be for everyone. This is one of the darkest YA contemporaries I’ve ever read; it’s full of grim emotion and desperate people, screwed up families and unhealthy romance. But at the same time, it gave me a new perspective where I didn’t expect to find one. Really, any book that makes me feel even slightly accepting toward statutory rape is one that is worth some pretty heavy attention. Drowning Instinct is a brilliant, intense novel that manages to be beautiful in spite of the torture it puts readers through. It deserves far more attention that it has received to date.