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heathcliff 's review for:
Columbine
by Dave Cullen
Really comprehensive and good reporting on the Columbine school shooting. Cullen balances all perspectives well such that we are able to thoroughly understand what had happened with all that were involved in the massacre — the victims’ families and survivors, the authorities and the investigation, and then the killers themselves. The descriptions of what happened in the school on the fateful day are brutal and difficult to read. I shuddered at the details.
I also appreciated that Cullen turns the lens back at the media as well. He asks questions about how good reporting should be conducted on mass shootings like Columbine, where, as he espouses later, it is clear that the killers desired the media coverage and the carnage was a big performance. It calls on journalists and media outlets to be more discerning and responsible about how tragedies like Columbine presented to the public. In that way, it is also an indictment of how some outlets had milked the tragedy for the eyeballs or rushed to break news without considering whether things are factual or not.
I admire the bravery and courage of the survivors of the shooting. Often while reading I tried to imagine what I would have done had I been in the library where the bulk of the killings happen — completely unimaginable. To know that some of them were able to recover (both physically and psychologically) and live fulfilling lives gives a semblance of a happy ending to an awful event. I’m glad Cullen ended the book with that afterword on forgiveness from the survivors’ perspective.
I also appreciated that Cullen turns the lens back at the media as well. He asks questions about how good reporting should be conducted on mass shootings like Columbine, where, as he espouses later, it is clear that the killers desired the media coverage and the carnage was a big performance. It calls on journalists and media outlets to be more discerning and responsible about how tragedies like Columbine presented to the public. In that way, it is also an indictment of how some outlets had milked the tragedy for the eyeballs or rushed to break news without considering whether things are factual or not.
I admire the bravery and courage of the survivors of the shooting. Often while reading I tried to imagine what I would have done had I been in the library where the bulk of the killings happen — completely unimaginable. To know that some of them were able to recover (both physically and psychologically) and live fulfilling lives gives a semblance of a happy ending to an awful event. I’m glad Cullen ended the book with that afterword on forgiveness from the survivors’ perspective.