Columbine, by Dave Cullen, was a great book. It took a different look at the lives and motives of the two killers in the Columbine shooting. I loved the way that the book started out. Dave Cullen starts out the book with a chapter about the principal of Columbine High School addressing the student body before the weekend of prom, four days before the shooting occurred. The way that Cullen writes this chapter instantly pulls you in, if you hadn't already been drawn in by the story of the shooting.
Going into reading this book, I had already known about the shooting, as I did a project on school shootings for school. I was hesitant about reading this, because I didn't want it to simply be a recap of the events. I was not disappointed. Cullen balances the psychological aspects with glimpse into the shooting's effects on survivors, victims' families and the Columbine community. As a reader you will come away from Cullen's this book with a deeper understanding of what lead these boys to kill, even if the answers aren't easy to fathom. According to Cullen, they lived apparently normal lives, but under the surface lay an angry, depressive (Klebold) and a sadistic psychopath (Harris), together forming a beyond dangerous pair.
Every detail I thought I knew about columbine was wrong. The media got it all wrong. This book is very well written. It is intense, gripping and at times frightening. It started to drag a little at the end but that was the only downside of this book. I found myself forgetting that what I was reading was nonfiction, as Cullen wrote this book in such a way that it came off as fictitious, but fascinating. I will admit that I did get nightmares. This book read in such a way, that I felt like I was there during the events of the shooting. Yes, this book was scary, but I look at the events of the Columbine shooting in a completely different way. I would recommend this book to anyone who thinks they can handle it.
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