Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Columbine by Dave Cullen

38 reviews

savreads28's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Death of parent, Antisemitism, Cursing, Death, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Mental illness, War, Animal cruelty, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Mass/school shootings, Racism, Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Violence, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

dev921's review against another edition

dark emotional informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Death, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Racial slurs, Suicide, Alcohol, Child death, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

carolinebiehn's review

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings, Grief, Child death, Gun violence, Murder, Death of parent, and Bullying

shakira19's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Grief, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Suicide, Violence, Death, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Mass/school shootings

toxxicwasste's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings, Blood, Death, Violence, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Gaslighting, Child death, Grief, Toxic friendship, Genocide, and Mental illness

Moderate: Death of parent, Antisemitism, Alcohol, Bullying, and Sexual content

Minor: Cursing, Drug use, Hate crime, Racism, and Rape

haloblues's review

informative reflective

3.0

EDIT: Bumping down to a 3/5 due to the fact that a lot of my research since reading has shown this book actually repeats a lot of inaccuracies and false narratives. It was, however, still well-written and generally true.

Oof. I actually have no idea how to review this one -- it's the first non-fiction book I've read in what's probably years, and definitely the first one I've reviewed on here, so my general approach to reviews doesn't stand here (I can't exactly present stars based on how entertaining a plot and how likeable the characters were). But I've been experiencing an unprecedented craving for non-fiction and educational materials lately, a big part of which is true crime, and when I saw this I knew I had to read it, not least of which is because as a Scottish person I knew much less about it than my American friends did, and all of my knowledge came from the rumours and exaggerations that were debunked by precisely this book.

I barely put it down for days. It was informative, detailed, absorbing and thoughtful, taking care to go through each of the misconceptions and warped 'facts' one by one and pick them apart to get at the truth, even when that truth wasn't what people wanted to hear. There were a few parts that seemed contradictory -- referring to Eric as popular and 'only below the football team' on the social hierarchy only to say that most of the school didn't know he or Dylan later; saying Eric got "lots and lots of chicks" only to then detail their struggles finding girls/dates and Eric in particular's disinterest in relationships; saying the boys were not bullied at all when classmate accounts and the observations of Sue Klebold said otherwise -- but overall it seemed extremely well-researched and tightly bound by fact. The chronology could get confusing at times; it had a habit throughout the entire book of jumping between chronicling Eric and Dylan's escalation leading up to Columbine, the actual events at the school on the day, and the reactions and responses after the fact, often with no introduction or warning, so it was occasionally jarring to go from the shooting to immediate discussion of the boys getting ready for prom.

But regardless, I know far more about this than I did before reading it, and I found myself emotionally invested in the winding detail of the unfolding events and thinking of it when I had to be elsewhere, eager to get back to reading. I'm moving onto Sue Klebold's own book next, in the hopes of gaining yet another fresh perspective on everything that happened. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Toxic friendship, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Bullying, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Suicide, Sexism, Grief, Misogyny, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

appledaxh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Suicide, Murder, Blood, Child death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Mass/school shootings

Minor: Racial slurs and Racism

silly_goose_gal's review

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death, Gore, Gun violence, and Suicide

msradiosilence's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Racism, Alcohol, Grief, Gun violence, Toxic friendship, Violence, Ableism, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Gore, Suicide, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Blood, Medical content, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Racial slurs, Mental illness, Drug use, and Bullying

brookey8888's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

This is such a hard book to review. It’s very graphic so be warned. It goes into so much detail and it’s so disturbing to read. I would recommend this book if you want to learn more about it and the misconceptions about this and all the coverups and things of that nature that happened during this time. I did appreciate learning about the victims and their lives before and after. I do have to say when reading this how I was thinking that nothing really has changed to make these less common, which is just so awful. I did read this when I was in middle school( the author spoke at my school), it was good to read this with an adult brain. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Child death, Gore, Murder, Cursing, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Violence, Grief, Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Blood, Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Sexism, Mental illness, and Religious bigotry