Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Columbine by Dave Cullen

41 reviews

writeasiread's review against another edition

challenging emotional medium-paced

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death, Child death, Grief, Murder, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Suicide, and Violence

abicaro17's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.25

Wow. I mean a book about the Columbine High School shooting isn't going to be easy to read AT ALL but, this book is an amazingly interesting and informative collection of the facts and events of April 20th, 1999. The author both recounts events from eyewitness, police reports, and security footage. The book complies the psychological states of both Eric and Dylan, the effects on parents, students, and locals, and the global response following the events. As someone who was given the Rachel Scott presentation in middle school, I feel like misinformation on this event spreads even to this day. I was told that Eric and Dylan were loners who hated jocks and popular kids. They were infact psychopaths (or at least Eric was) who planned to blow up the school and didn't have a list at all. The whole book is so interesting and godawful its hard to like or dislike it. The rating is based solely on the slurs (which I assume are quotations but that's not always clear) and the actual nature of school shootings being a traumatic subject (specifically talk about VA Tech shooting). 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide attempt, Violence, Child death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Homophobia, Murder, Suicide, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Antisemitism, Gun violence, Medical content, and Religious bigotry

raebelanger's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death, Gore, Child death, Violence, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Grief and Medical content

avroc's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Violence, and Child death

Moderate: Medical content, Racial slurs, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Homophobia, and Cursing

Minor: Rape, Suicide, Sexism, and Misogyny

myiahjay's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Violence, Murder, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Self harm

savreads28's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

---

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

---

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

shakira19's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

---

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

---

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 against another edition

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. 

---

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