Columbine by David Cullen

What an awful choice of books in the current time and circumstances; however, in my own defense, I chose to read this book earlier this month - and finished it way before the Boston Marathon bombings but I never got around to reviewing it until now. And quite frankly, I always have had this morbid curiosity as to what drives people that were seemingly normal to do such horrendously awful things. That was the motivation that I had in picking up this book (and why I ahve been obsessed with the Boston Marathon case since it happened). This book is a comprehensive examination of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado and follows two story lines very closely.

What I loved about this book is how much of it took me by surprise. We all believed and thought that they were targeting specific people; however that isn't what happened. The two boys were shooting at random that day. They didn't have targets at all! Well, I take it back - the school and the community were the targets as this was a miserably failed attempt at domestic terrorism. There were bombs planted by the boys that didn't go off. THis book also is wonderful. It is a work of media criticism and the book is well written. I think that the weakest part of the book is channeling Eric HArris - the author simply can't do it effectively or well and it falls short - and this is why I think most people read a book like this. All in all though a good book.