A very personal, deep dissection of a family leading up to and after the suicide of their 18 year old son. Not a lot of sugar coating with this dramatic read. This death would begin what is referred to as a suicide cluster. 9 more young people in that area would end up killing themselves. Many would choose the method of the first victim. Quite a few of the victims knew each other.
I wasn't thrilled with the format of jumping backwards and forwards of the timeline. But as far as brutal honesty, the author lays it all out there for the world to see. I guess when you decide to write this sort of book, you put all your family's dirty laundry out there for the entire population to view.
Any parent that has raised teenagers can relate to some of the events that are written about. Behaviors that parents don't approve of are common place. But a tiny percentage of those kids choose to end their own lives. Even kids that end up on the wrong side of the law rarely resort to this desperate act. So was this a preventable act or was it preordained to eventually happen?
When the mom dug deeper, she spoke with some of her son's friends. Her son spoke of killing himself for almost 4 months. The mom inquired deeper and the friends didn't believe him because even as he spoke of killing himself, he never actually did it. That was until he did. The dead kid's friends believed that the family knew he was suicidal. Yet all that time he had been telling them that he was fine.
You think you know your kids well enough to suspect when something isn't right with them. Are parents that caught up in life that they miss the warning signs that their kids are in way over their heads?
It's a fascinating read about human nature and self reflection after the fact.
Amazon product
I wasn't thrilled with the format of jumping backwards and forwards of the timeline. But as far as brutal honesty, the author lays it all out there for the world to see. I guess when you decide to write this sort of book, you put all your family's dirty laundry out there for the entire population to view.
Any parent that has raised teenagers can relate to some of the events that are written about. Behaviors that parents don't approve of are common place. But a tiny percentage of those kids choose to end their own lives. Even kids that end up on the wrong side of the law rarely resort to this desperate act. So was this a preventable act or was it preordained to eventually happen?
When the mom dug deeper, she spoke with some of her son's friends. Her son spoke of killing himself for almost 4 months. The mom inquired deeper and the friends didn't believe him because even as he spoke of killing himself, he never actually did it. That was until he did. The dead kid's friends believed that the family knew he was suicidal. Yet all that time he had been telling them that he was fine.
You think you know your kids well enough to suspect when something isn't right with them. Are parents that caught up in life that they miss the warning signs that their kids are in way over their heads?
It's a fascinating read about human nature and self reflection after the fact.
Amazon product