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ncrabb 's review for:
Left Drowning
by Jessica Park
I had read a compelling review of this book, and my appreciation for Park's other books is deep and genuine. I enjoyed the Gourmet Girl mysteries, and Flat-Out Love was delightful. But this one just left me wanting to reformat my entire SD card and somehow start over.
Blythe McGuire is in her final year of college at a small Wisconsin liberal arts school. She is clinically depressed, much of which seems to stem from a fire that left her parents dead and her brother badly injured. In the book's initial pages, we are privy to a tragic scene that reveals Blythe stumbling drunkenly into her college dorm room. It becomes apparent that this night is not unlike most of the nights in Blythe's week. She drinks to kill the dreams, anesthetize the rawness of her emotions, and still the disorganized restlessness of her troubled mind.
She ventures to a nearby lake one day where she watches a fellow student skipping stones, and she is captivated. There's something calming and restorative about the boy's actions. He soon involves her in the activity, and a friendship is born that ultimately morphs into a sometimes-troubled romance.
Blythe soon meets the other members of Chris Shepherd's family, and for the first time in a long time, she feels a sense of belonging. But the family, like Blythe herself, is deeply troubled and in need of healing. That's especially true of Chris. Park skillfully weaves Chris's story with Blythe's, but this is not a typical formulaic romance. There are emotional highs and lows that are accentuated by the difficulties the two experienced in their respective earlier lives. You come to at least feel a diffident appreciation for Chris and the other members of his family who play important parts in the book. Blythe is mostly likable, and I found the plot tolerable enough.
But here's the thing: The sexual scenes are so graphic and flaming that they served merely to distract and tire me. That little forward-by-seconds button on my audiobook reader saw some serious and hard use. This book has convinced me that there must be something seriously wrong with me. The sizzle stuff is clearly designed to pump up everything from one's heart rate to one's anticipation for what lies on the next page. It just didn't work for me at all. Instead of being swept away by the scenes, I found myself wondering with no small amount of irritation how many times Park could drop the F-bomb in a single sentence. I really was afraid by the time I finished the book that I would need to send my book reader to Canada for repairs, so heavily and constantly did I lean on that little forward by granular units button.
If you read the description for this book on Goodreads, you'll note that it cautions would-be readers about the language, etc. I don't see that often in a Goodreads description, and I might have reluctantly put the book aside unread if I'd seen it first. But if detailed sexual descriptions and profanity aren't your thing in a book, let this one slide and glide on past your library checkout or Audible/Amazon purchase button.
But don't give up on Park's writing; that would be a sad thing to do indeed. She is a master at creating memorable characters, and her dialogue is well written and worth the time and effort you'll put into reading it. If Park were a less-talented writer, it would make sense that she would need to resort to some of the techniques she employs here. But she's not someone lacking in talent by any measure. Because of that, I found a lot of those scenes were simply gratuitous and unnecessary.
In an attempt to be fair to her, I have to say that her descriptions of Blythe's clinical depression were so gut-knotting real that you almost felt as if you, too, suffered with Blythe in every way. I just question the credibility of whether a romance--even a stellar one--can bring someone out of the depths of clinical depression as apparently deep as Blythe's was. Maybe it can, and maybe I'm not giving love enough credit, but it just felt a bit artificial to me. Of course, I hope I'm wrong. But the whole premise felt a little plastic.
Blythe McGuire is in her final year of college at a small Wisconsin liberal arts school. She is clinically depressed, much of which seems to stem from a fire that left her parents dead and her brother badly injured. In the book's initial pages, we are privy to a tragic scene that reveals Blythe stumbling drunkenly into her college dorm room. It becomes apparent that this night is not unlike most of the nights in Blythe's week. She drinks to kill the dreams, anesthetize the rawness of her emotions, and still the disorganized restlessness of her troubled mind.
She ventures to a nearby lake one day where she watches a fellow student skipping stones, and she is captivated. There's something calming and restorative about the boy's actions. He soon involves her in the activity, and a friendship is born that ultimately morphs into a sometimes-troubled romance.
Blythe soon meets the other members of Chris Shepherd's family, and for the first time in a long time, she feels a sense of belonging. But the family, like Blythe herself, is deeply troubled and in need of healing. That's especially true of Chris. Park skillfully weaves Chris's story with Blythe's, but this is not a typical formulaic romance. There are emotional highs and lows that are accentuated by the difficulties the two experienced in their respective earlier lives. You come to at least feel a diffident appreciation for Chris and the other members of his family who play important parts in the book. Blythe is mostly likable, and I found the plot tolerable enough.
But here's the thing: The sexual scenes are so graphic and flaming that they served merely to distract and tire me. That little forward-by-seconds button on my audiobook reader saw some serious and hard use. This book has convinced me that there must be something seriously wrong with me. The sizzle stuff is clearly designed to pump up everything from one's heart rate to one's anticipation for what lies on the next page. It just didn't work for me at all. Instead of being swept away by the scenes, I found myself wondering with no small amount of irritation how many times Park could drop the F-bomb in a single sentence. I really was afraid by the time I finished the book that I would need to send my book reader to Canada for repairs, so heavily and constantly did I lean on that little forward by granular units button.
If you read the description for this book on Goodreads, you'll note that it cautions would-be readers about the language, etc. I don't see that often in a Goodreads description, and I might have reluctantly put the book aside unread if I'd seen it first. But if detailed sexual descriptions and profanity aren't your thing in a book, let this one slide and glide on past your library checkout or Audible/Amazon purchase button.
But don't give up on Park's writing; that would be a sad thing to do indeed. She is a master at creating memorable characters, and her dialogue is well written and worth the time and effort you'll put into reading it. If Park were a less-talented writer, it would make sense that she would need to resort to some of the techniques she employs here. But she's not someone lacking in talent by any measure. Because of that, I found a lot of those scenes were simply gratuitous and unnecessary.
In an attempt to be fair to her, I have to say that her descriptions of Blythe's clinical depression were so gut-knotting real that you almost felt as if you, too, suffered with Blythe in every way. I just question the credibility of whether a romance--even a stellar one--can bring someone out of the depths of clinical depression as apparently deep as Blythe's was. Maybe it can, and maybe I'm not giving love enough credit, but it just felt a bit artificial to me. Of course, I hope I'm wrong. But the whole premise felt a little plastic.