This one is difficult for me to review without coming off as unfeeling and cynical, but here it is.

Natalie and Matt are the loving parents of three great children. Beck is the oldest of the three - a good student, a football star, and a loving son with a beautiful girlfriend. Life is great, practically perfect, and high school graduation is just around the corner. Then tragedy strikes in the form of a car accident in which Matt is killed and Beck is injured. Life isn't so great anymore.

As Natalie spirals down into depression and starts relying on medication to help her get through the days without her husband, Beck is left to take care of his young brother and sister. Eventually, this takes a toll on the boy who is dealing with his own guilt and pain at the loss of his dad, and dependence on drugs enter his world as well.

The description of a parent's fear when a child becomes addicted to hard drugs is illustrated well in the book. The panic of a phone call in the middle of the night, the sleepless nights when you don't know where your child is or if he is even alive are all described here. Although I'm not personally familiar with the physical cravings of a drug abuser, I do think the author gave a very vivid account of what it's like to inject heroin into a vein, and the constant need for more when the drug wears off.

What I didn't care for in the book were that the younger children of the family, Devin and Annabelle, barely seemed to be affected by their father's death, their mother's deep depression and their brother's disappearance and drug addiction. They're hardly even characters in the story. To be fair, this is really Beck's story, but the other kids seem to be coping just fine in the middle of chaos. They’re basically just props to illustrate how Beck was forced to compensate for Natalie’s dysfunction.

This story is heart-rending, but it had too many spiritual undercurrents for me. A mother’s desperate prayers for her son, fine. I get it. But then, gradually, “God” started popping up in too many conversations and thoughts. And then wow. The end of the book was WAY too woo-woo spirit-in-the-sky for me. I know many people will love this part of the story. It just wasn’t for me, and it dropped my rating down from a 3.5 to a 3. I possibly would have rated it lower, but the author’s note at the end of the book captured me. THIS is what the story should have been. It was heartfelt, not fake. It was authentic, because she wrote about her son, a recovering addict. Her words about her real life situation tore into me as the book itself did not. I felt her pain and love for her son so clearly.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an advance egalley proof of the book in exchange for my honest review.

Saving Beck is about a young man who lost his way in life, to addiction. The
pressures of life got to him.

A heartbreaking backstory is woven into both characters points of view stating the emotional turmoil both encountered from the shared experience. Beck recounts the events that took place before bringing him to this point in his life. His mother does the same thing. It’s an excellent way to deliver the truth.

It’s unequivocally raw and honest. A family broken by tragedy, torn apart by guilt.
Each headed down separate paths of destruction until their worlds implode.
Beck is fighting for a life he’s not sure he deserves. His family and friends are by his side reminding him that he is still a good person despite the bad choices he made.
This story is character driven to help support Beck and his mother. This story illustrates the various ways people cope with tragedy and how each persons choices not only effect them but effect everyone else as well.

I’ve never read a story about the actual experience a person went through while addicted to drugs. I understand the process and stages of addiction, but to hear
Beck recount each and every time he took drugs was scary and eye opening.

This story was intense, it was filled with a sadness that is difficult to relate to. But
with love and much support this family manages to pick up the pieces of their broken life. I loved the unconditional love and support Nat gave her son throughout this book.

Courtney showed what addiction is and what it can do to a family and the person using. She illustrated along the way the importance in never giving up hope. She believed in her son’s recovery and believed if he set his mind to it he could accomplish it. She reminded the reader how good her son was and still is even after making bad choices. She states that’s is okay to call yourself an addict because it’s
a reminder that you are human and you survived the battle.

This book was completely heart breaking and so much more. Have your tissue ready plus some back up boxes because you are going to need it! This story was so beautifully written that it left me breathless. A must read!!

Heart wrenching. A feel it in your soul read. Bring on the tissues. Saving Beck is a phenomenal emotion read. You can feel the emotions that Courtney Cole has behind writing this story. In Saving Beck you are hit with loss and grieving. But also the struggle to move forward and what happens when you look for that escape from reality for just a little bit. Natalie is trying to do what she can. She is lost and surviving on her anxiety meds to cope with the loss of her husband. But what guts you most is watching the kids start to suffer a little when she tunes out into her depression. Beck does what he can by being the oldest and stepping in to take care of his siblings. Everyone has a breaking point and at a certain point you finally start to see Beck hit his. He is coping with not only the loss of his father but the feelings behind it and the blame. You get they why me and it takes you the darkest places. Once Beck is in the fight of his life be prepared to start bawling. You feel for everyone involved. The struggle of how deep Beck's addiction became. Saving Beck may be one of loss, depression and addiction, but it is also a book of hope, closure, healing and strength. After reading this story I want to do nothing but give Courtney Cole a huge hug and thank her for writing Saving Beck. I may be suffering from and epic book hangover and emotionally raw at the moment but it is so worth it. SAVING BECK IS A MUST READ OF 2018.

Almost all of us know someone whose life has been touched by opiate addiction. In this heart-wrenching novel, Cole shows hoe sorrow and grief can lead us down the road of addiction and how it affects everyone around us. In SAVING BECK, Natalie loses herself to grief after her husband is killed in a car crash. Her son, Beck, is left to pick up the pieces and tend to his brother and sister as his mother sinks deeper and deeper into depression. But Beck is carrying his own sorrow and guilt surrounding the accident and he begins stealing a few of his mother's Xanax to cope. Beck tries heroin and finds is finally brings him the peace he wants. Out of frustration and despair he leaves home, leaving all who love him frantic. When he resurfaces on his mother's porch two months later, he is literally foaming at the mouth in the throes of an overdose. The doctors put him into a medically induced coma to keep him alive. The story of where he has been and whether he will survive is told in alternating voices. Beautiful and scary, it shows how none of us are immune from addiction; none of us are safe.