To 17-year-old Cassie Bernall, walking into the library of her surburban high school on 20 April, 1999, it was an ordinary day. How could she know that by the end of the hour, her two classmates would storm the school, guns blazing, and kill as many people as they could, including her? As the wounded were carried from the bloody scene, several stories of bravery emerged, but one spread faster and farther than the rest. Confronted by her killers, Cassie was asked, ‚Do you believe in God?‘ She answered, ‚Yes‘. SHE SAID YES is an unflinchingly honest account of a teenager’s dangerous path to self discovery, her parents‘ extreme efforts to save her and of her tragic death at the hands of those whose fantasy world she had broken away from. Cassie is already known to many as a modern martyr, but her story is more intriguing and complex than simply her brave choice to acknowledge her faith even under the most extreme circumstances. Cassie had endured a tumultuous and conflicted adolescence, and became involved with a group of friends who dabbled in the occult and had murderous fantasies of their own. Just how she broke away from this influence, the screaming matches with her concerned parents and her ultimate life changing choices are all dramatically brought to life by her mother in this searing and soul-searching memoir. SHE SAID YES is a story of growing up in the ’90s, of peer pressure, adolescent turmoil, and the tough choices parents make. It is the story of a mother’s loss – of dreams and hopes dashed by the cruel reality of death at an early age. But it is also a story of redemption more enduring than the tragedy that cut a young life short.
ISBN: 978-0-7434-0052-7
