Columbine Review

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold called it “Judgment Day”. Columbine written by David Cullen, goes deep into detail about what happened on April 20th 1999. It goes into the journals of the two boys, Eric and Dylan, the killers. The boys were both the same but different in many ways. They both felt the necessity for revenge and bloodshed. They planned to kill as many people as they could. The boys acquired guns, ammo, CO2 bombs, and also made bombs, big bombs. During their rampage they murdered thirteen people and injured more than twenty. Less than one hour into their killing spree they turned the guns on themselves. Many people never knew or understood why this happened, not even the parents of the two boys. Reading this book you will find the answers to those questions and much more.

Eric Harris was a psychopath. “I hate the f**king world..” started off Eric’s journal entree on April 10th 1998, almost one year before the attack. He was full of hate and anger toward everybody. Dylan Klebold on the other hand, didn’t come off the way Harris did in the book. Cullen almost made him look like a victim to Eric’s crazy plans and thoughts. Eric was the type to be a leader not a follower and his follower in his case was Dylan. Dylan was a suicidal depressive. You can really see in the book that Eric came off much more demented than Dylan did. Cullen stated in his book “the most common word in Dylan’s journal was love.”

Cullen clears up the distorted stories of the attack and the killers. Reporters assumed he killers were part of the Trench Coat Mafia, only because they were wearing trench coats, but they were not associated with them what so ever. Many reporters retrieved their information from the students who were inside and witnessed what had happened, so you would think all the stories would be true, right? Wrong. Researchers say many times people are too disoriented by the traumatic events they went through or witnessed, to get their story straight. All the thoughts in their head get jumbled up and they can’t tell right from wrong. Just like many people thought there was more than two shooters because at one point the boys removed their trench coats, giving the allusion there were four shooters.

The author David Cullen is good with the facts and details but goes back and forth between different ideas a lot. While reading this book I got bored with it after a while. He talks about the boys then switches to the victims then to the investigators, it’s a lot to read. Even though Cullen isn’t too good at staying on topic, it’s an easy read. The columbine shooting is very well known and was a major part of history, so why read? I thought reading this book was going to be pointless since I was going to read everything I already knew but it was different than I expected. I learned a lot. You learn surprising facts and details you would have never even known unless you did detailed research on the subject, as Cullen did. It’s so interesting to learn about the people and the boys from the shooting that it keeps you interested and you keep reading.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is into solving puzzles or mysteries because that’s really what the book is doing. Cullen’s whole point was to find out the real reason why Dylan and Eric did what they did. He goes into everything he can to try to find answers and you kind of follow along. Though in the book Cullen states,”there had been no trigger”, the book is still worthy of reading.