Book Review l A Mothers Reckoning : Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy

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

Sue Klebold 

(Mother of Columbine School Shooter Dylan Klebold) 

I watched Mrs. Klebold do a presentation for TED talks and then I stumbled across her book. After reading this I went back through the TED talks and other presentations that she gave, and I recommend those over the book (Il get into why in a second)

The book goes through Mrs. Klebold's personal experiences (taken from diaries, notes, police reports and various other sources) to recreate her mental state in discovering there was a shooting at her son's high school and that her son, Dylan was one of the two shooters. That Dylan was not forced into his role and how he had hidden this side of himself from all his friends and family. 

The false new reporting, the lawsuits, all the aftermath. The coming to terms, the choosing to speak out publicly about her son's actions and then becoming an advocate for mental health. 

When Sue speaks it is incredible, moving, touching, inspiring. Her writing - I should say the book? because there are editing flaws and so many other problems as well - falls way short of the potential and my expectations. 

The introduction to the book was atrocious - boring, longwinded, confusing, I was reading the same lines over and over, getting no clarification. It was jumbled and incredibly frustrating.  I was about to put the book down before I even got into the main body of the text.

Once I got into the first section of the book things got better, but I still had a lot of issues. Sue went into how she received the information and processed everything; from the morning of the shooting, to years later as she went through therapy. The problems I had in this section, where more personal to how I read and take in information. We went through the same points again and again. Sue told us over and over, how she just couldn't believe it, how it couldn't be her son, how Dylan must have been tricked, or coerced. I understand that the way she chose to write the book, made the repetition pretty much impossible to avoid (and as a lot of it was taken from diaries, I am sure she did tell herself those things 1000 times) but that doesn't make me like it. 

The Second Section of the book was what really impressed me; it summed up that intro and the first section (100 pages ish) in about 2 pages, and then we get into more facts about mental health, the warning signs, the lack of warning signs, bullying. 

Overall I would really recommend this book, it did cut through a lot of misinformation about the Columbine Shooting. I know lots of other readers didn't struggle with the first section the way I did (again just a matter of taste), it is very educational and really prompted me to read similar books.