This book absolutely took my breath away. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t want to read it at first– I thought it was going to be some promotional stunt or “tell-all” about the Columbine tragedy. But after hearing someone recommend it, I decided to give it a try and I am so incredibly glad I did. First, this book is a beautifully written, deeply vulnerable account of the Columbine tragedy, its aftermath and Sue Klebold’s own attempts to process her crippling grief. Klebold strikes the perfect tone in this book– she makes no excuses for her son’s actions, but also makes no excuses for love she will always feel for him as his mother. At once a love letter to her son, the families of the victims, and the world, this book will change the way you live, parent and think about mental health issues.
As an added note: 100% of the proceeds from this book are donated to research and charitable organizations focusing on brain health.
From Goodreads: On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives.
For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently?
These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts.
Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent. Check it out on Goodreads!