Aimee Houser’s Tragedy In Tucson: The Arizona Shooting Rampage focuses on the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and rally goers in a Tucson, Arizona in January of 2011. The book begins with the opening session of the House of Representatives and how Gabriel Giffords participates in events as a congressional representative. This is to illustrate that life for this representative from Arizona began as normal as possible the day of the shooting rampage. Houser later transitions into Loughner and his mental health condition and ends with the various outcomes of the victims of the shooting and how they cope with the tragedy which befallen them. Houser seems to give a broad overview of the event that leads into various areas of discussion without a deep connection between the elements of discussion. Such lack of connection between the elements of discussion may be a result of expectations and the overall construct of the work.

What encouraged and drew me to explore this book were the topic of the Tucson tragedy and the appeal of the picture on the front cover. The cover suggests that the book will focus on remembering and understanding what took place at an early morning rally in Tucson. To young readers who are not familiar with the shooting of Rep. Gabriel Giffords, the title and picture may not allude to this particular circumstance. Young readers may just see a cover of mourning and the word tragedy, and may ask themselves "What is this book about?”

Upon further examination of this work, I find that there are neither author’s notes, endpages, introduction, preface, afterword, nor appendix. Such lack of information does not enhance the reader’s understanding of what motivated the author to compose this work. It also does not lay a strong foundation for understanding what the author intends for the reader to come away with or appreciate after reading this book. This work does contain other references. The index provides access to verbal text and cover main topics, places, people of the book such as schizophrenia, assassination, Pima Community College, etc. This book contains a glossary, but most of the vocabulary is clearly explained within the text. This may explain why the vocabulary words are not highlighted in book.

The scope of this work covers the dynamics which leads to the shooting rampage of Loughner and the aftermath of the tragedy. Houser’s purpose seems to be to provide the reader with a general perspective of the Tucson tragedy. The attempt to include the many facets of the event within this book causes there to be less depth toward particular elements. It is also obvious that the attempt to structure the content of the book to widen its scope results in a loss of focus. The reading of the book feels as if many different individual stories are put together to give a broad perspective of the event. Structure of the content may have something to do with the sources used to construct the narrative. Again, over 90 percent of notes stem from news media reports. This may explain why various aspects may read in like a news article. ( )