"A Study In Drowning" Book Club Readalong Day 1

As a reminder, from now on, our monthly discussions will be both here on the OwlCrate blog AND on The Nest! Go check out Amber's discussion that will be full of fun extras like bookish charades, shelf scavenger hunts and coloring pages!
 

On each day we'll read a section of A Study In Drowning both on the blog and in The Nest's group, and then discuss in the comments our theories and predictions. This means there will be spoilers for each section! Beware! 
 

Just a reminder that this will be a SPOILER discussion for chapters 1-3 of A Study In Drowning, so make sure you read or are finished this section before continuing.
 

We meet our protagonist, Effy, the only female student at the Architecture College of Llyr. She finds a poster soliciting college students to compete for a chance to rebuild Hiraeth Manor, the home of national author Emrys Myydrin. Effy carefully copies the poster's details so that she can submit her proposal on her hand in ink, much to the chagrin of an impatient boy waiting for her to finish. 

She goes to class and muses about the manor, distracted. Afterward, she goes to the library, worried about submitting subpar work for class. While Effy wishes to do better at the more difficult architecture college, she'd prefer to attend the literature college. 

We learn that Llyr is in the middle of a war with a neighbouring country, Argent and that author Emrys Myrddin has passed very recently and has been given the title of Storyteller, much like a saint or holy person and was laid to rest in a museum close to the college.

Effy asks at the library for non-fiction books about Myrrdin, and the boy who had interrupted her earlier is there looking for the same thing. He tells her she's gorgeous and suggests they team up on the proposal, but she declines. 

The librarian finds that the books have been recently checked out by P. Heloury, someone with an Argantian name. The librarian says she'll let Effy know when they come back in. 

Effy leaves upset and offended that someone from Argant has checked out Llyr's most prominent author's work. 

She goes down to the lakefront to consider the growing tensions between Argant and Llyr, absent-mindedly rubbing her finger that has had the tip cut off after the third knuckle. She thinks about the Sleepers before returning to her dormitory. 

Effy meets up with her roommates and tells them about the poster and her failing classes. They commiserate, and she goes to bed to read Angharad, Myrddin's most famous book about the Fairy King; she considers taking a sleeping pill but sketches into the dawn instead.

Effy receives a letter congratulating her on being the chosen architecture student who will redesign Hiraeth Manor.
 

Effy will need to travel to the very far south, to a village on the sea called Saltney, in the "Bottom Hundred," an unforgiving area full of sharp cliffs and the raging sea.
 

Her roommates are concerned, but she's determined to go.
 

Effy heads back to the library. P. Heloury still needs to return Myrrdin's books, but she's there for a different purpose. She's looking at maps of Llyr, noting the border with Argant covered in barbed wire, the verdant north and down the map to the Bottom Hundred—an area of crumbling cliffs and fishing villages.
 

Suddenly, she's interrupted by an Argantian boy who studies literature. She is about to ask him about P. Heloury, but the boy is vulgar regarding her enjoyment of Myrrdin's work, implying only girls enjoy them.
 

Effy is insulted and leaves to pack for Saltney and get signed off on her journey by her academic advisor, a creep named Corbenic, who has assaulted her in the past…and seems to have gotten away with it.
 

He disparages her ambitions, calling her a silly girl and telling her she'd have failed out already if she wasn't so pretty - seriously, gag me now.
 

Effy leaves with her eyes stinging and sees her name on a posted paper with her last name, Sayre crossed out, and in its place, a slur I won't write on the OC blog. Effy tears the paper off the wall and tosses it into Lake Bala.
 

Seriously, why are men?