Have you ever read a book and not really known why you wanted to? That is how I feel about Dave Cullen's book Columbine. The April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine High School was just one national tragedy I've lived through via the media. It was something that made me rethink going into high school, seeing as I started high school in the year 2000. Even then, I didn't know why anyone would shoot up their school. And really, there is no way to figure out why these people do what they do, but with all of the recent shootings, it made me remember what went on on that particular day, and, being one of those people that's into true crime, I remembered seeing this book and decided to pick it up.
Now I, like a lot of other people, had a view of Columbine that varied exponentially from what actually happened. I thought it was two kids who were picked on and treated badly who snapped, basically. What Columbine did for me was throw it out the window. Dave Cullen is a journalist, and one who followed the massacre from day one on. What Cullen did with this book was simple: debunked the media representation with the facts of the matter.
It did what you'd think it would - outlined the day's events,
and what led up to the massacre itself. Columbine went into the minds of both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold - exposing Harris as a psychopath who no amount of drugs could help, and Klebold as a suicidal hanger-on, desperate for love and affection from one of many girls who barely knew he existed.
Columbine explained, in detail, profiles of both the killers and some of the more talked-about victims, from Cassie Bernall, the girl the media said 'said yes' when Harris asked if she believed in God, and the 'boy in the library window', Patrick Ireland. Bernall's story was found to be untrue, but still a message of hope and martyrdom carried out through a book written by her mother, called She Said Yes. Ireland suffered for three hours with two shots to his head and one to his foot, his body going half numb before throwing himself out of the library window without realizing that first responders were scrambling to catch him at the ground. It is people like this that made Columbine such a great story, whether or not those stories were true.
Reading the book made me uncomfortable at times, and made me angry in others. So often, something awful like this tragedy happens and we just want to sweep it under the rug and forget about it. Truth be told, I had basically forgotten about all of the newscasts and the media blitz surrounding the case. This book was, as weird as this sounds, the perfect thing to make me feel the exact same way I did on that day. It separated the truth from the lies and brought it to the forefront. Separated into five sections, Columbine dissected the events leading up to the shooting from both the viewpoint of the shooters and their story, and the other main characters (such as Frank DeAngelis, or "Mr. D" the school's principal). It took a quiet, Christian setting, and went painstakingly into the who's and the what's and the why's of one of the nation's first school massacres.
Did I enjoy reading the book based on the subject matter alone? Not really, but of course, I didn't expect to. Did I enjoy it based on how much I learned? Overwhelmingly yes. Is it the only information out there on the case? Of course not. And, really, this is just one journalist's view of the case, albeit a well-researched, well-written view. In closing, I would say that if you have an inkling of interest, like I did, this book is worth your time.
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