A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold (★★★★★)
Print • Owned (Thriftbooks) • Nonfiction • 2016
Sue Klebold’s son, Dylan, was one of the killers of the Columbine massacre that occurred in April 1999. This book is her attempt to make sense of what her son did and help other parents better understand their children. It’s a difficult book, as Sue is grappling with immense amounts of grief—grief over losing her son to suicide, grief over coming to terms with what was going on in her son’s brain to lead him to commit mass murder, and grief for all of the people her son killed and their families. Whenever the identity of a mass shooter is released to the public (and how sad that these mass shootings are so common now that this is a typical process we’re used to), I always think of the family of that shooter. What must it be like to know that your child or sibling or cousin or grandchild or niece or nephew committed such a heinous act? In this book, Sue gives us an up-close look at this kind of grief and bewilderment. I don’t believe the Klebolds did anything wrong here. I believe they missed some signs of depression in Dylan, but those signs are so, so easy to miss (and even easier 25 years ago when mental health and depression weren’t common things we talked about). This was an incredibly hard read but also an enlightening one, and I am so impressed with Sue’s courage to write this book and be totally honest about what she experienced and the emotions she went through.
Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi (★★★★☆)
Audiobook • Libby • Fiction • 2021
This book begins in 1978 Kabul where 10-year-old Sitara lives a charmed life. Her father is the president’s right-hand man and she experiences all of the privileges that come along with that. Everything changes though when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitara’s family along with them. Suddenly, she’s an orphan in a place that doesn’t feel like home. Sitara is soon taken in by an American diplomat who takes her to America and changes her life completely. Thirty years later, Sitara—now Aryana—is a renowned surgical oncologist and is thrown from a loop when the very same guard who smuggled her out of the palace where she lived during the coup (and possibly, the same guard who killed her whole family) shows up in her examination room as a patient, upending the tidy world she has created for herself. There is so much to love about this book: it’s propulsive and enlightening and fascinating. There are badass female characters and beautiful scenery and an uplifting ending. I have some quibbles with the plot and the way some things were revealed while others were not. It also felt overly long in places, especially in the middle. (I think I would have grown very weary of it, had I not been listening to it on audio.) All in all, though, a really fantastic read about a part of the world I read very little about!
The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren (★★★★★)
Print • Owned (Amazon) • Contemporary Romance • 2022
You guys, I loved this book so much! Christina Lauren’s books just always work so well for me. I don’t know what it is about this writing duo, but their books give me all the sappy, happy feels. In this novel, there’s a new dating service in town called GeneticAlly that matches people up based on their DNA (there’s a whole scientific reasoning behind it, but I couldn’t explain it to you if I tried. Something about genes and how certain ones can help show compatibility?) All you have to do is send in a spit sample, and select what type of match you want—do you want to keep your options open and allow any percentage of matches? Or do you want to hold out for only the top matches, someone who is 80-100% genetically compatible with you? Single mom Jess opts for the top matches and is shocked when she receives a 98% score with GeneticAlly’s founder, Dr. River Peña. Never having seen a score so high, the team has a proposition: Spend three months getting to know River and attending events to promote their business, and they’ll pay her. Okay, okay. I know that sounds kinda sleazy, but I promise it does make sense in the context of the book. And, ugh, I just loved Jess and River and their connection so much! It was a slight enemies-to-lovers trope, but they weren’t enemies for very long and it was so heartwarming to watch them fall for one another. This novel has some fantastic side characters, too, including Jess’s daughter who added a special precociousness to the book. It was sappy and romantic and everything I love in my romance novels. Were there issues? Yes, absolutely. But if I’m rating based on how the novel made me feel, it’s a solid 5 stars.
What are you reading right now?
I have a lot of thoughts for someone who hasn’t read any of these books!
1) I am so torn about reading this author. The research shows that naming the shooters in mass shooting events is a bad idea and gives rise to repeat crimes. On the other hand, the author is a victim, too, and shouldn’t she be able to use her voice? it’s complicated, but I think it’s probably too deep for me, so I’m going to pass on this one.
2) I’ve never heard of Sparks Like Stars, but it sounds like something I would really like! I’m adding it to my TBR.
3) Christina Lauren is mostly a miss for me, but people do like this book. I downloaded the audiobook for a road trip I’m going on this weekend. We’ll see if it hits with me.
I totally understand where you are coming from on #1. For me, it feels different, though, since she is the mother of one of the killers. She does talk about repeat crimes (not necessarily that naming the killers is what gives rise to repeat crimes, but knowing how they did what they did), and states that the Columbine killers have been brought up repeatedly in other mass shootings, which has to be so hard to bear as the mother of one of the killers. I’m really glad she wrote this book and gave us a glimpse into what it’s like on the other side of a mass shooting. She also spends a lot of time talking about raising teenagers, understanding depression/brain health challenges in teenagers, and how to be an advocate and I think she had a lot of important things to say on that topic.
I also gave A Mother’s Reckoning 5 stars. I think it is a really important read especially for those of us with kids. That was a completely different era of public health so I can see why they kind of overlooked the warning signs from their son. These days I think/hope parents are on the look out for the kind of behaviors their son was presenting. But it still gets missed/overlooked. I thought she was brave to share her story and it’s a book that stayed with me.
I haven’t read the other 2, but Sparks like Stars has been on my list since it was on the MMD summer reading guide a couple of years ago! I just finished Tomorrow x 3 which I LOVED! And now I am reading Carrie Soto Fights Back which I am devouring and would probably be done with if I wasn’t disciplined about my bedtime. I think you read and loved that book, too!
It really is sad to see how many more mass shootings have happened even since Sue Klebold wrote this book! And many that have been deadlier than Columbine. Her line that her son went to the school to die and didn’t care if other people died with him (while the other killer went to the school to kill people and didn’t care if he died alongside them) has really stayed with me.
I think you would really love Sparks Like Stars! I was actually surprised you hadn’t read it yet, haha.
I neeeed to pick up Tomorrow x 3 because so many people have raved about it!
What a hard thing to do to write A Mother’s Reckoning. Wow. I cannot imagine what she went through/is still going through.
The Soulmate Equation sounds like a sweeter version of The One. It’s such an interesting topic! I love that writing duo too.
You know what I am reading – Book Lovers!
She talks a lot about her grief process in the book, and I can only imagine how difficult it was to relive it all to put together this book.
I hope you love Book Lovers as much as I did!
I can’t remember if I gave A Mother’s Reckoning 4 or 5 stars, but it was an EXCELLENT book and I thought it was riveting and heartbreaking – but so well written.
I just finished Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. It was an excellent and, shocking hilarious, read about the death industry (cremation, primarily). So fascinating.
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes has been on my TBR list for so long – I think that might be the next one I suggest for book club. It would make for a fascinating discussion, I think!
I really liked the Soulmate Equation! I enjoy Christina Lauren almost always.
That first book, whew, I am not going to read it. I felt my heart race just reading this. I have often wondered how parents survive such an ordeal, orchestrated by their own child. I mean, it is terrifying and awful. Someone once recommended We Never Talk About Kevin to me, and I am pretty sure I didn’t make it through the first chapter. Honest to god, I am sweating just thinking about it. I know now what happens, and even when I didn’t, I couldn’t read it. Parenting is so hard and sometimes people do the best they can and then…tragedy.
I thought about you a lot when I was reading this, since you have two teenage sons and so did Sue Klebold. She tried so hard to figure out where she went wrong but that’s the scary thing about parenting: You can do the best you can and bad things can still happen. UGH. I don’t blame you for staying away from it!
I… don’t think I have ever read a Christina Lauren novel? Yikes! Clearly they are popular – I should remedy that, maybe? Any suggestions? 🙂
Also not sure I can read A Mother’s Reckoning at this point… but it sounds unbelievably powerful.
In a Holidaze could be a fun one to read at this time of year! I also loved Roomies. A lot of people really liked Love & Other Words, although that’s probably my least-favorite of theirs.