Oh, this was terrible. Not the book, the book was very good, but the experience of reading it is simply terrible. I had been wanting to read it based on the excellent reviews it received, and I pretty much tore through it as it was such good reporting, and wasn't fully prepared to be thrown into a funk for days after.

Mr. Cullen presents the book in two major threads, roughly alternating chapters - first, starting the day of the shooting and then following the aftermath, and the other is an investigation of the two boys, starting back a few years and leading up to the shooting. Okay, as a structure it works a lot better than how I've described it. And now that it is 10 years out, he also states he wishes to dispel some of the myths about Columbine that sprung up in the media ... with this, I did indeed get a lot more information about things I hadn't previously known, but beyond that, I would say a lot of myths have dispelled themselves fairly effectively over time. And some of them were barely even myths in the first place ... I can't imagine that anyone who attended high school after 1980 ever heard "so-called Gothic subculture" spoken in hushed tones on the Nightly News and wasn't immediately aware that whatever was going on, it didn't involve high school goths.

There were a few inclusions of those depressing schlocky True Crime details, which were mostly noticeable because the book generally didn't have that tone. I was disappointed at all of them, though.

The scariest part is how clear it seems that high school kids can be really freaking dumb. I mean, I know I was, and it seems extremely fortuitous in retrospect that all my friends were dumb in the same ways so that our dumb stuff mostly didn't impact anyone else. The profiles Cullen creates of Harris and Klebold assert that Eric was born bad and there wasn't anything that could be done about it, while Dylan was more of a hapless kid with a lot of emotional problems who probably would have glommed on to whatever dumb thing it was his friends were doing. And their other friends ... also very dumb, and the things they did are probably being played out again and again daily and all we can do is be thankful that most stories don't end like this.

Recommended: It's very good nonfiction, but be advised it's hard reading. ( )

I was only ten years old when the Columbine shootings happened, but it was the first time that I realized that I was not always safe in the world around me. Even though I'm a product of the newly-minted "zero-tolerance" school environment that emerged in response to the shooting, I haven't thought about Columbine since the 10-year anniversary earlier this year. While poking around on the internet for more information about the event, I came across this book and I have been waiting to get my hands on it ever since.

This is a book that I literally could not put down. It was well-written, it was fascinating, and it covered every single detail about the Columbine massacre. As a historian, I could appreciate how well-researched it was, and I have confidence that Dave Cullen provides a fuller (and more accurate) picture of what transpired than almost any other source on the subject. I haven't read a book straight through the night since Harry Potter 7!

One of the blurbs on the back compares it to Capote's [In Cold Blood], and it's so true. I loved In Cold Blood when I read it years ago, and I loved this book today. I never thought that "true crime" would be a genre that would interest me, but apparently it is something I cannot get enough of.

I feel conflicted about "loving" a book about a subject that destroyed people's lives, but it's clear that the book and the author are to be praised, even though the event is still horrifying. ( )

WOW! I thought I knew basically what transpired during the assault of Columbine High School in April of 1999. I could not have been more mistaken!

Dave Cullen, who has followed the story from the beginning, reveals many underlying fallacies in our 'knowledge.'

First, it was not a case of 'getting back' at a few individuals or a group that had wronged the perpetrators (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold). Instead it was a carefully planned attempt to wipe out all the 'drones' who inhabited Columbine High.

The police had several clear warning signs beforehand about the perpetrators intentions but chose to ignore them, and later to hide (or lose) the information to avoid culpability.

The perpetrator's parents; loving' caring, but ultimately remaining inactive or waiting for the 'system' to curb the burgeoning psychopathology of the two boys.

The media choosing to ignore the truth often to 'sell' the story. And how they ultimately hindered the healing process.

An amazing look at a situation that could have been headed off, if only...

The book does not seek to lay blame on any of the above (or anyone else for that matter). It just tries to set the record straight. Who (you'll be surprised at the number of people that were aware and/or involved but ignored the perpetrators or did nothing). What (not a simple revenge plot but a thought out attempt to exterminate as many people as possible). When (a trail of information spanning years before the assault). Where (it can't really happen here). But most of all, WHY?

Cullen spends a good amount of time chronicling the aftermath of the assault. How can any group deal and forgive the perpetrators and get on with life?

And the victims. The ongoing terror and uncertainty of life after the assaults. Healing (physically, spiritually, and emotionally) that never seems to end.

This not an easy read. It is not meant to glorify or remove responsibility from the perpetrators. There is much that has been learned from the horrible events in Columbine. Let us hope (and pray) that if anything, some good can come of the events in April 1999 that horrified us all. ( )

From my blog: http://weelittleactress.blogspot.com

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Recommended Tea: The Republic of Tea's Earl Greyer

Recently I was working at the bookstore and one of our regular customers approached me.

"Do you have the new Lucy Cousins book?"

This particular customer is a whiz when it comes to kids' books. He knows everything new, usually before we even know about it. Thankfully this time we happened to have the exact book he was looking for.

I love helping Mr. Enthusiastic, as I have dubbed him, because he is... um... enthusiastic.

"Look!" he said, "I have to show you this page..."

He flipped to a section of the book that told the story of Little Red Riding Hood. There, in this brand new children's book, written by the creator of Maisy, was a picture of a wolf getting his head chopped off with an axe.

"GEEZ!" I exclaimed.

"I know!" he said, "Isn't it fantastic?"

I started to tell him about an article that I recently read about fairy tales. About how in the good ole days, children's stories weren't all roses and sunshine. They were scary, graphic, terrifying, usually involving diseases and orphans and murder. Think the fire in Bambi (I still get a little shaky thinking about that) times one-thousand. The article argued that stories like this were important for a child's development. When introduced to concepts like violence and death at an early age, children, apparently, are able to process these things more easily later in life rather than being completely blindsided by them. They SHOULD learn about these things as children in a safe way rather than being raised to believe that in life, everything is tied up in a nice little bow.

It was at this point that he looked at me and said "Yes... in real life, there is no happily ever after."

It struck me as more than a coincidence that this encounter occurred while I was reading Dave Cullen's Columbine - a book that I had been eager to read for months.

I know exactly where I was when I found out about the shooting in 1999 (which, Cullen argues, was actually a failed bombing meant to kill hundreds). I was in my grandmother's living room, sitting in her big leather chair that is now my big leather chair, watching the footage on her television that was as old as stonehenge.

I remember seeing all of the images, now burned into our consciousness, for the first time. Children running with their arms above their heads. Heads thrown back in sorrow. The boy in the window.

Almost immediately, the media (as we liberals like to call it) started providing answers to the collective American question mark surrounding the horror. "Oh, they were bullied." "Oh, they listened to Marilyn Manson." "Oh, they were nazis." "Oh they were goth kids." "Oh, they were racists."

Then the heroic stories started to pour out. Cassie Bernall declaring her faith in the face of death. A modern day martyr. Then came the songs, the sermons, the books, the testimonies.

Guess what? None of these things actually happened.

Cullen's book, rather than being an exposé on the inner-workings of twisted, bullied, outcast kids serves as a means to show the world what they really were - kids. One introverted, lacking self-confidence, with a desperate need to feel loved and accepted. The other, a textbook sociopath. Both were popular, well-liked, and intelligent. They were desperate to go to prom, to get dates, to fall in love. Both had close friends that were Christians and minorities. Neither of them were goths or racists.

But this just goes to show what we as Americans are trained to do when a tragic, unimaginable event takes place - we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and find the moral. Find the lesson learned. Find the happily ever after.

When I was about to turn 13, my older brother passed away. I thought that if I could find the lesson that this event was supposed to teach me (we Southern gals and our "sposed ta's"), I would be healed. If I could wrap it all up in a big bow, make it all make sense, it would be as if none of it had ever happened and my pain would vanish.

I took the standard "Well, if this had not happened to me then x and z would not have happened, either, so really, it was a good thing," approach. This made me feel "fixed," like I wasn't screwed up anymore, and didn't have to deal with all of the scary questions. I could now be the brave girl with her life completely together, better and wiser than she was pre-tragedy. At that age more than any other, you see the world in black and white terms. There is an answer to every question. Doubt is not okay. Doubt equals weakness.

Turns out, I'm just as confused now as I was then. The only difference is that now I'm able to admit it.

Later, I found an old brown paper bag with some of my brother's last wishes written on it. "Tell Amanda that it's okay to ask questions," it said. Only now do I fully understand what he was trying to tell me.

Usually when I blog about the books that I've read, I try to describe a moral or lesson that I've learned from them. But the very point of Cullen's book is that there aren't always morals. Trying to tie up all of the loose ends can sometimes cheapen the experience and nullify the humanity. It serves only to provide us mental relief - "okay, we've learned what that was about and now we can move on." But who wants to see their lost loved ones reduced to a lesson or a microcosm? What high schoolers want to see their school reduced to a symbol for what is wrong with young America? The truth is that truth - life - is more complicated than that, and reducing everything to something that you would read on a sampler doesn't do truth, or life, justice.

Our role as humans is to examine, to pursue, to use our minds and wrestle with what life hands us. Sometimes, there are no answers. Sometimes, there is no black and white. And only through embracing and accepting the question marks, the grey, can we see ourselves as we really are - complex, terrifying, beautiful, irrational creatures.

Like Ms. Stevie Nicks says, "Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? I don't know."

I don't know. And guess what? That's okay. ( )

I learned so much that the media hid from the public. An eye opening read. ( )