Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to read this book before it became unavailable to me. I do think it would have been a good fit for my reading tastes.

Did not receive/read in time due to technical error on kindle/tablet. Not having left feedback has due to error has impacted my shelves. Leaving 4 stars.

Raw, honest, emotional, heart breaking. And heart building. Park will put your heart in a blender but then slowly put it back together better than it was before.

It's difficult to believe the same person who wrote FLAT-OUT LOVE wrote this novel. There is none of the charm or heart or complexity of character here. It felt lost and meandering and wholly uncertain of what it was or wanted to be.

I've had left Drowning on my Kindle shortly after it came out. After finishing the book, I regret that it took me so long to find a chance to read it. It was a wonderful book. One of my favorites that I have read this year. There were a few obvious plot holes. Normally plot holes take away from the story. However, Left Drowning is written in such a way that they seem to kind of add something to the story. As a reader, they didn't bother me at all. I loved the characters so much, especially Sabin. I would love it if the author wrote a follow up novella, or bonus chapter, or something where we could see how the characters are doing a couple years later.

I had really high hopes for this novel at the start. Even though the summary sounded rather...heavy-but-in-the-melodramatic-sense, I *really* liked the way Blythe described her depression and the way her thoughts were portrayed. A lot of her comments really resonated with me, and they made her actions make sense to me. Unlike some other reviews ("omg, why does she tell this stranger about her dead parents on first meeting???") that actually made sense to me. It might seem weird to someone well-adjusted, but there's something so...awkward, about connecting with someone after a super long dry spell that makes you (well, me) just drop heavy shit all of a sudden. That stuff needs to come out, and if it builds enough pressure it'll take the first chance it gets!

Much like that, a lot of Blythes actions in the book didn't bother me in the way they bothered a lot of other negative reviews.

So, hopes up, right? Maybe this will be a mature exploration of depression and coming back to socialization? Haha, no. Once the relationship gets established, it takes over. Blythe and Chris's quasi-romance was *relentless* and the introspection that I so enjoyed at the start of things soured. Things that were once convenient-but-believable became Just Because and Fate Said So. I might have forgiven this if it had been portrayed as part of her depression/desperation, because bad decisions can certainly happen if you've only got one relationship and you're clinging to it thinking it'll save your sanity. But no, it's all supposed to be end-game. And then of course there's all the rampant cheating we find out about, which turns the later parts of the book unbearable for me.

This book is truly the most emotional journey I have ever taken in just one novel. I cried so hard that I got the hiccups, and I laughed so hard that I snorted. They were both in the same chapter.

There were quite a few characters to this novel, and somehow I never doubted in my head that they were all real people. I felt the deep emotional sadness of Blythe in the beginning of the novel and felt her start to really breathe after she met Chris and his own troubled family.

There was one character that is not even mentioned in the short snippet from Amazon who was my absolute favorite character in quite a long time; Chris’s Brother Sabin. His personality was strong and real and I feel in love with him throughout his friendship with Blythe.

To summarize, this book is great. But, it is not a light easy read. It is deeply charged with many emotions that take you through a roller coaster that could leave you laying on the floor in the fetal position (okay I didn’t actually get in the fetal position, but I was crying like a little bitch). I happily give this novel 5 stars

Loved this one! I stayed up all night reading it and have recommended it to so many.