Left Drowning by Jessica Park

source
published 2013
isbn: 9781477867150 (e book)
read: 7/18-22/2014 (well more like it was read to me)
i dont even know what nail polish color any more

member how i was freaking out because Amazon is awesome!

yea well i went along and got the free 30 day trial that exact same day after saying i was going to wait. 

if im being honest, the selection isnt that great :/  so i went with the staff top 25 pick or something like that. 

this was the first one whose cover caught my attention so i went for it. 

ive never heard of this author before nor did i look her up.  i saw this had good ratings so i went for it. 

bonus? it has the audio reader so i could listen to it while i worked. 

i want to hate this book but i cant. its a weird thing because its never happened before. 

this book is based on Blythe and her time at Matthews after a tragic accident that resulted in her parents death. it is also based on Chris and his 4 siblings. Chris and Blythe (i dont think ive ever heard that name before...i kinda like it.) have a stronger, deeper connection than both of them could have imagined. 

i like the audio option, i just wished they would have splurged (is that what you would call it?) and would have gotten a guy to do the guy voices because the chick doing the dude voices, well, it made me laugh. every time. 

another thing, i wouldn't necessarily use this book for a book club or read outloud with younger children around or basically anywhere you would be shy people knowing about the kind of stuff you're reading. 

reason being? its very pornographic at times. 

i think even more so than 50 shades of grey (in it own sense) (yes i read em. no i didn't buy em. pdf files! but im not even going to lie, i have no love life myself so i think its safe to say you can count me in on the valentines day premiere!)

lets get to the spoilers! 

blythe's parents die in a horrible fire in their vacation home. she was only able to save her brother james even though she believes she has ruined his life as well. 
she blames herself and only herself because that summer it was her turn to pick the home and while james wanted a brand new state of the art home, blyhte wanted to stay in an older home. those were her favorite.

after the tragic accident her and her brother lose touch per say and they veer off to their own colleges. 

she ends up at Matthew's. 

she is very anti social and all about drinking basically every night to forget all her sorrows. 

the morning after, its some holiday so there are barely any students around. she heads to the student cafeteria to buy coffee. as she sits down this character Sabin comes out of nowhere, sits down with her and steals one of her coffee's. this is an awkward thing for her seeing as how she never speaks to anyone. 

they become quick friends if thats what you want to call it and she agrees to go to a play of his. 

after he leaves, after 4 years of being there, she finally heads out to one of the lakes by the school. 

there she meets chris. 
what are the odds? she meets 2 people in one day that she gets close to. meeting someone who touches her without her flinching because its something she simply can not handle....completely out of the norm for her. 

they hang out, have a good time and they end up at this diner where she meets estelle. 

it so happens they are all related. (eric, estelle's twin comes around later on)

blythe and chris are connected in more ways than they both thought possible; the story twists around to connect them back to each other in several ways. the night of her parents death was the night that chris should have died as well but because of the fire.....

lets do bullet points because i have a feeling with all the twists and turns this can become a very long post. 

blythe:

• lost her parents in a fire // was only able to save her brother. she senses but wont admit even though chris does, that she went for james instead of her parents because they were already dead.
• after rescuing her brother she manages to go back and tries to climb back in to the house to try and save her parents only to stay frozen. had it not been for the stranger that night that saved her she probably would have died.
• she also blames herself for the firefighters not being able to get around because that very same morning she had let james drive and he managed to discombobulate the car so they left it blocking the very steep hill that led up to the house since it wouldnt have made it up.
• blames herself for her brother no longer playing soccer because she believes that she damaged his leg very bad while trying to save him. 

james: 

• while he was severely hurt in the fire, he was not damaged to the point that he could no longer play soccer. he just decided that it was something he no longer wanted to do. of course blythe doesnt know that and as time passes by its easier for him to blame her instead of telling her the truth. which he eventually does. 

chris:

• all of the siblings attend the same school because he vowed to keep them together after his mother passed away.
• his father would torture him every so often. months would pass by before he would do something once again but he took most of it for being the oldest and when the father would try to get the younger kids, he would draw attention to himself to avoid them getting hurt. 
• it wasnt until his father almost killed him that he finally stood up for himself and his siblings. 

sabin: 

• the first one to make contact with blythe (did not romanticize her even thought he's a total man whore) 
• ends up being an alcoholic. needs to be hospitalized, the whole works. 

estelle: 

• she is sleeping with her teacher and only blythe knows. i think her brothers knew they just avoided it. 
• towards the end of the book she ends up dating blythes brother while living in their summer home (blythe's and james). its a few weeks of them hooking up when james comes to blythe and tells her that estelle has started asking him to hurt her while they have sex. like physically hurt her. of course chris over hears. 

eric: 

• for the most part he is very quiet in the book. i mean he has his moments but hes not as out there as his other relatives. but he does make it hard to let himself be loved by his partner zach.

it is very apparent that the shepherd siblings are all damaged because of their history. 

lets see, even with bullet points i left a lot out. 

for example: while chris and blythe both acknowledge that they are in no way ready for a relationship, he completely blows that over when he starts dating Jessica (i believe that's her name.) thats after blythe has confessed everything to him about the night of the fire in the shower. so they stop speaking for about a year mostly because he was to marry this girl. 

even after all that pain and all that time she waits for him. she focuses on herself and running because the last thing she wants to do is be with anyone else BUT chris. can you believe that!? he was going to friggin marry someone else! SPOILER ALERT!!! (in the spoilers section ._.) he doesnt marry her. chris and blythe end up together of course but its not until after another bump in the road. 

this book is soo heavy packed with all sorts of stuff that by the time you remember that he basically dumped her to go be with someone safe you have already been on a roller coaster of a million different other events that make you completely forget that. 

i want to write it down but then i dont because even though at some point you place it all together, you are still in shock when you read it as it happens and i want YOU to experience that even happened in the first place. 

all in all, like i said, i want to hate this book buuuut i cant. 

gah!

its just the stupid audio book. dont listen to it. just read it!!!

and its very sexual at points. im glad i didnt listen to it out loud in the car with one of my kids or at work....that would have been awkward!!

read this book. 

youll love it. 

it has a million friggin twists and turns. 

the ending was, how to word this...., not perfect but i think it ended good. 

it was the calm ending you needed to a heavy packed story line!

read it and let me know what you think. 

unless you already have...then let me know now! :D

thanks for reading with me!
love ya lots! (: