Numb to This
Memoir of a Mass Shooting
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
This searing graphic memoir portrays the impact of gun violence through a fresh lens with urgency, humanity, and a very personal hope.
Kindra Neely never expected it to happen to her. No one does. Sure, she’d sometimes been close to gun violence, like when the house down the street from her childhood home in Texas was targeted in a drive-by shooting. But now she lived in Oregon, where she spent her time swimming in rivers with friends or attending classes at the bucolic Umpqua Community College.
And then, one day, it happend: a mass shooting shattered her college campus. Over the span of a few minutes, on October 1, 2015, eight students and a professor lost their lives. And suddenly, Kindra became a survivor. This empathetic and ultimately hopeful graphic memoir recounts Kindra’s journey forward from those few minutes that changed everything.
It wasn’t easy. Every time Kindra took a step toward peace and wholeness, a new mass shooting devastated her again. Las Vegas. Parkland. She was hopeless at times, feeling as if no one was listening. Not even at the worldwide demonstration March for Our Lives. But finally, Kindra learned that—for her—the path toward hope wound through art, helping others, and sharing her story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After surviving a mass shooting on her Umpqua Community College campus in 2015, teenage Neely grapples with suicidal ideation and various other long-lasting effects on her mental health, as detailed in this harrowing graphic novel memoir, a debut. Following the incident, Neely experiences panic attacks and PTSD, for which she attempts to seek counseling through school services, but there are no therapists available. She laments living in a country where gun violence persists at an alarming frequency; "This is everywhere," she says upon receiving news notifications reporting further gun violence, such as the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. Though the attack is never explicitly depicted on the page (the closest it gets is a single panel of a gun firing at the start of the event), the entire sequence, rendered in striking, vibrant color, tangibly captures bystanders' fear and confusion; comparatively, a heart-wrenching scene in which Neely attempts to take her own life is portrayed in muted gray tones. Via realistic dialogue, tense relationship dynamics, and turbulent emotional highs and lows, Neely astutely asserts the importance of hopeful defiance in the face of the numbness and resignation that often accompanies feelings of powerlessness. Back matter includes resources for suicide prevention and anti-gun organizations. Ages 12–up.