Columbine

I'll admit, I found it hard to open the first page of David Cullen's Columbine. I was a sophomore in High School the year those students were shot at their own high school. I was loathe to relive the shock we all felt, whether or not we as too cool high school students deigned to admit it at the time, loathe to relive the sadness, the fear. At the time, it was the single most earth-shattering moment of my relatively young life, and I absolutely did not want to read it. Still, it taunted me. The bleak grey cover with stark white lettering whispered from its place on my office shelf, 'read me.'

This morning it finally happened. Spurred on by a colleagues decision to read what is sure to be the definitive book on an American tragedy, I cracked the paperback proof that I had grabbed from our stacks of free galleys so many weeks ago. Much to my surprise, this wasn't the trying read that I had first envisioned it to be, but a gripping account of two boys and thirteen victims brutally cut down in the prime of their lives, not to mention the mourning and psychological effects on countless others.

Cullen shows us with utter grace and compassion that these boys were not the social outcasts they were made out to be; they were not advised by KMFDM to murder their fellow students, but two deeply troubled young men (Harris more so than Klebold) who committed the ultimate act of brutality against innocent and unsuspecting students.

Even as the book meanders toward the fateful day, giving in depth description and background on the town, the boys, the victims, the ammunitions suppliers, a dark cloud looms over the horizon of the narrative. Cullen somehow manages to make a suspenseful non-fiction out of a story we know too well. This book is absolutely astonishing in the attention to detail and the in depth journalistic reporting (how we miss you journalists). Even with the intense subject matter, I found myself unable to put the book down, and unwilling to be pried away.

Happy Reading,
Julia