Reviews with content warning for Mass/school shootings - A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy

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Reviews tagging 'Mass/school shootings'

A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold

31 reviews

nikmahie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

This is an important read for anyone who interacts with young people. I have immense respect for Sue a d how she has put her entire heart in this book. It really gives a great insight in what happened and how this affected everyone (indirectly) involved.

However, this was a very long and sometimes repetitive read. I found myself sometimes skipping parts, because it felt like I had already read it. I also wished to read more about Eric’s parents and what had been said during the depositions from both families.

An interesting read, nonetheless.

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mbergman's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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pmhandley's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

4.0

This book is, unsurprisingly, an incredibly difficult read. I had constantly conflicting feelings the entire time. If what you are looking for was a magic answer on how two people could commit the atrocity that was Columbine, you are not going to find it here. Sue is very self-flagellating throughout the book, agonizing over details like the time she and Dylan's father were worried over how to pay for Dylan's college, and if the idea of being a financial burden made Dylan feel the world was better off without him. It is viscerally painful and heartbreaking. She repeatedly recalls otherwise innocuous conversations with Dylan and torments herself over what if she had missed something or what if she had said this or done that. I believe most of these are wishful thinking; a lot of the moments she recalls, with very few exceptions, were things you would expect from any teenager. Reading about Sue and Tom viewing the Basement Tapes for the first time is something I will never forget. I cannot fathom the immense pain and anger they must have felt as investigators showed them the recordings, and I hope I never will have to. Sue is open that until the tapes, she refused to believe Dylan was not tricked or coerced in some way, which I think is an expected coping mechanism when your own child has committed such a horrific act. Accepting that Dylan was a willing participant and actively helped plan is a major turning point. Sue adamantly wants people to know she and her husband, Tom, did not raise Dylan in a home that taught him violence and that he was very loved by his family. She also admits she understands why she and her husband received so much blame in the aftermath and that, roles reversed, she likely would have thought the same way. The misguided idea that you could not possibly not know your own child was plotting something so horrific is perhaps the most unsettling takeaway of this memoir. For all the insistence following the shooting that any good parent would have known, I finished this book with the unshakeable feeling that that is more a lie people tell themselves than a conclusion supported by the details of Columbine. There were details of Columbine I admit I did not know. I was surprised to read that the police had to re-search the Harris home after discovering the Basement Tapes, because he had hidden weapons so well they missed them the first time. It certainly recalibrated my skepticism that the Harrises could not possibly have missed their son was hoarding weapons. It also not once occurred to me that the Klebolds would receive, for lack of a better term, "fan mail" regarding Dylan and people who admired what he did. The hate mail was unsurprising and a thing I expected to hear about. The letters of admiration I was totally unprepared for, and Sue saying that those were worse than any of the hate letters haunts me.

While Sue is a talented writer, and I found her reflections to be very self-aware, there were a few criticisms I had. First and foremost is her emphasis on mental health. I understand Dylan was depressed, and she does point out that the vast majority of people with mental illness do not commit violent crimes, but it feels more like lip service. Dylan's depression is mentioned again and again and it made me uncomfortable that it was weighed so heavily as a possible factor. Dylan did not commit mass murder because he was depressed, and this is stigmatizing as someone who has gone through my own mental health issues. Her emphasis on suicide prevention made me uneasy because I think at points it overshadowed that Dylan massacred his schoolmates before killing himself. I found it a bit insensitive to describe that Dylan died by suicide, because while technically true I think it sanitizes the actual circumstances. Admittedly, Sue is careful about reiterating that her search for answers is not trying to make excuses, and no possible circumstance justifies Dylan's actions. Again, while I disagree with some of the factors mentioned by Sue, I also tried to keep in perspective that she is a grieving mother, and I think a search for answers and any possible thing that could have been done differently is a natural reaction to her situation. Additionally, she seems to have done a lot of good with her suicide prevention work, and I can't fault that; she is careful to make clear she doesn't blame Dylan's depression, just that maybe treatment would have made him less susceptible to the deep anger and nihilism he drifted into, or at least gotten him into therapy.

Second, I was surprised what was not addressed, and felt the absence of a some subjects was rather glaring. Little is talked about in regards to gun control, or spent on Robyn and Mark Manes, two people that gave Dylan and Eric their weapons. It would be wrong for Sue to pin blame on them for the shooting, yet I think they clearly have some culpability for getting the boys guns and this went unexamined. I realize this is also probably not in the scope of the book, since it largely revolves around Sue's own examination of her parenting. I also thought toxic masculinity got little attention. Dylan's journals heavily obsess over a girl in school he's infatuated with, who he may not have even met, and how much he wants her affection. It is clearly a source for some of his anger, and this goes unexamined as well. Related is that he was shouting racist things at classmates during the shooting. Surely there is more to dive into there, and he was radicalized by racist influences at some point to some extent.

Finally, the entire intro should be cut from the book. It bizarrely hounds on how poor Dylan was vulnerable and taken advantage of by mastermind Eric who manipulated his depression. The intro almost made me stop reading, because I assumed that was what the rest of the book would be like, making sad excuses for Dylan's actions and denying responsibility. Sue herself is very clear that her son was a willing participant, and nothing justifies his actions! The intro does not fit with the rest of the book at all and it's rather insulting.

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zoetrope47's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

I think this book is incredibly important for everyone to read. As a teacher and someone interested in psychology and the mindset of those who kill, I found this book to be very informative and reflective. It made me think about the way we look at youth that commit acts of violence. It also made me think carefully about the issue of mental health and how it is handled in our world. We’ve got a very long way to go if we really want to help people but it’s crucial to help.

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