Numb to This: Memoir of a Mass Shooting by Kindra Neely
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Special thanks to Manda Group for sending a copy for review.
Summary:
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 (Goodreads).
Thoughts:
This is one of the best graphic novels I have read by far. I loved how the author portrayed PTSD vividly through her artwork along with the use of colours.
The storyline was great. Kindra Neely tells her story about experiencing a mass shooting and her path to cope with the PTSD it caused. The story’s pace is neither slow nor rushed. For instance, the scene describing the mass shooting did not take up half the book; instead, Neely wrote enough background information. She talked about her friends, family and her hobby before the mass shooting happened, but she made sure that the book focused on the hard journey of rehabilitation. She has provided just enough information to show the big change in her life in many aspects after the shooting. I liked how the storyline focuses on the trauma and recovery in the aftermath of a mass shooting.
The character development is also really intriguing. I could see the growth of Kindra as the book progresses. In the end, even though she has not fully recovered from the PTSD of the mass shooting, she has learned ways to cope with it through drawings, counselling and spending quality time with people. Some books with protagonists who struggle with mental issues often have them fully recover from their illness. In reality, I often find that people who struggle with mental illnesses never fully recover, and they only learn how to cope with it better. Therefore, the book’s ending seemed more realistic compared to other endings where the protagonists would fully recover from their trauma.
I also loved the drawing style. It shows how scary panic attacks or PTSD are. For example, the background shows lightning bolts when Kindra experiences a panic attack. The character is also drawn in a distorted way to visually show how sudden and scary panic attacks can be. Moreover, there are some scenes where Kindra goes into depression and the colour in the scene would become darker and more monotone. These shifts in drawing styles made the whole story come to life, and it feels as if I am also experiencing these emotions with Kindra.
I enjoyed the graphic novel a lot, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about mass shootings or is simply looking for a great quick read.
Reviewed by Kiki F.