NUMB TO THIS

After a 2015 shooting rocks an Oregon community college, one survivor grapples with PTSD.

When the mass shooter murders people at her college, author/illustrator Neely never even sees him. Hiding, she experiences the attack as a mix of terror, confusion, misinformation, bravery, and a horrific kind of boredom. Post-attack, she swings between despair and constant panic triggered by journalists, her fellow students, and even her friends. She doesn’t tell her loved ones about her suicide attempt, and, determined to move on, she goes to art school in Savannah, Georgia. But how can Kindra heal? Her phone is constantly lit with alerts: the massacres at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the Las Vegas music festival, Parkland, and the Thousand Oaks bar shooting, whose victims included a survivor of the Las Vegas incident just a year before. For Neely the past three years seem like a constant flow of utterly pointless thoughts and prayers. She finds no closure at the March for Our Lives, but she works up the courage to seek counseling through student services only to find there are no available therapists. But in writing this very graphic novel, she at last finds some catharsis. An author’s note discusses her recovery from suicidal depression with unsentimental, pragmatic hope. Pale, freckled, redheaded Neely’s charming illustrations featuring soothing pastels with occasional pops of bright color help balance the heaviness of the subject matter.

This exploration of a gun-violence survivor’s raw pain amid ever repeating disasters will resonate with far too many.