There is nothing wrong with this book at the sentence level. Having said that, I found the content quite oppressive and frankly uninteresting. I regret that I could not get very far. As far as I did get, the book was essentially plotless. There was nothing to grab me here. I didn’t like it and can’t recommend it.

Intriguing read. The author accurately describes the issue of mental illness and what can be done for it.

Uniquely written eye opening look at dealing with someone with mental illness.The short chapters helped move the book along.This is a raw look at a difficult story.#netgalley #ecw

Wow, this was a powerful and unique memoir that will stay with me for a long time. The way it was structured was interesting and worked well for the book. It also kept the pace fast, as each section was short and you never knew what would come next (I just knew I was excited to read more!)

It was a thought-provoking look into the authors’ experience of caring for someone with mental illness. It was interesting to get a different perspective from another position. Having being in the position of loving someone with mental illness and suffering myself, I found this book helped me feel less alone and I hope (I certainly think it will) help other people understand how difficult it can be.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author, for a chance to read and review this book.

I have lived experience in this area and wanted to read it the second I saw it.

I don’t think this can be judged as a book as it is a life and the destruction of one.

The writing was hard to get used to but worth reading.

I would hope this book is recommended to people who have no concept of the toll.

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book..

Overall I thought this was an extremely sad book.. I struggled a little with it at times due to the stream of consciousness writing, interspersed with the writing of different people, as well as text conversations but it was an interesting approach to being an outsider to a mental health illness.

One thing which I recognised is that if a person is not wanting to be saved/helped, then nothing we do can change that. As much as we may try, we will forever be an outsider, no matter how much we care, or love and we can only choose to live ourselves. Sometimes, I think that is the 'lifeliners' biggest challenge. To accept defeat, but to continue to live.

I found the parallels between the illness of her friend/lover and the COVID restrictions to be quite evoking of the loneliness that came with that time.

This book was written in a unique perspective, and while I cant say I 'enjoyed' it, it did touch on the points of how we live our lives, the choices we make, or do not make, can all influence how we are mentally. If we feel like we are fighting upstream all the time, the decision to drown can seem like a good choice.

I think other survivors of suicide would resonate with this book.

This book never got going for me. The writing was too slow and I ended up not caring about the story at all.

I am very picky about the books I read. I need them to go at a quick pace and don't care much for a ton of details and this book just bogged down.

I do appreciate how hard it is to write,

It took me awhile to get used to the writing style and I had to go back and re-read sections, sometimes more than once, especially early on. Once I settled in though- OH what a book! A haunting look into mental illness set during the pandemic. I will read this one again and inevitably add to my review but for now, thank you NetGalley! This book was amazing!