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A review by lawbooks600
Numb to This: Memoir of a Mass Shooting by Kindra Neely
challenging
medium-paced
3.0
Representation: Black and Asian characters and another character with a physical disability mentioned
Score: Six points out of ten.
I saw Numb to This on this website a while back but I wondered whether the library I went to would get it. They eventually purchased it and soon enough I could seize the opportunity to get it by picking it up. Afterwards, I read Numb to This, but when I finished it, it could've been much better. At least it beats This is Where it Ends.
Numb to This has heavy content inside as mentioned above so it won't be for everyone. It starts with the first person I see, Kindra Neely, living in Oregon after moving from Texas due to a shooting near her parents' house. Intriguingly, Kindra's mother also attended Umpqua in the past before Kindra went there. Life looks hopeful for Kindra until one day, a mass shooting happened, killing nine people. Kindra then had to experience the trauma and PTSD that came from surviving such an incident in the pages following that.
I felt sympathetic for her because in the first third it looks like she's already recovered until she hears of more mass shootings bringing back unwanted memories of her time at Umpqua. Kindra feels that her voice isn't being heard since politicians are speaking for her and all they do is make talking points out of it rather than solve the issue. I liked that Numb to This is here to show an account of a gun violence survivor. However, it has weaknesses with its pacing and the characters. Numb to This didn't flow as smoothly as I had hoped because it felt disjointed with some abrupt scene cuts which made me think I missed a page. I would've loved to see more of the other characters in this piece of literature like Radhii but they were mostly in the background. I understand this text is a memoir as stated in the front cover but some other survivors accounts would've added to it.
To summarise, Numb to This could've been an outstanding and true-to-life memoir about a massacre that affected Kindra that still happens now but it had imperfections, forcing me to unfortunately lower its rating.
Score: Six points out of ten.
I saw Numb to This on this website a while back but I wondered whether the library I went to would get it. They eventually purchased it and soon enough I could seize the opportunity to get it by picking it up. Afterwards, I read Numb to This, but when I finished it, it could've been much better. At least it beats This is Where it Ends.
Numb to This has heavy content inside as mentioned above so it won't be for everyone. It starts with the first person I see, Kindra Neely, living in Oregon after moving from Texas due to a shooting near her parents' house. Intriguingly, Kindra's mother also attended Umpqua in the past before Kindra went there. Life looks hopeful for Kindra until one day, a mass shooting happened, killing nine people. Kindra then had to experience the trauma and PTSD that came from surviving such an incident in the pages following that.
I felt sympathetic for her because in the first third it looks like she's already recovered until she hears of more mass shootings bringing back unwanted memories of her time at Umpqua. Kindra feels that her voice isn't being heard since politicians are speaking for her and all they do is make talking points out of it rather than solve the issue. I liked that Numb to This is here to show an account of a gun violence survivor. However, it has weaknesses with its pacing and the characters. Numb to This didn't flow as smoothly as I had hoped because it felt disjointed with some abrupt scene cuts which made me think I missed a page. I would've loved to see more of the other characters in this piece of literature like Radhii but they were mostly in the background. I understand this text is a memoir as stated in the front cover but some other survivors accounts would've added to it.
To summarise, Numb to This could've been an outstanding and true-to-life memoir about a massacre that affected Kindra that still happens now but it had imperfections, forcing me to unfortunately lower its rating.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Mass/school shootings, and Grief
Full trigger warnings: PTSD, panic attack, death of people in mass shootings and a friend from suicide in the past, grief and loss depiction