excellent read. very different perspective than sue klebold a mothers reckoning. but she was dylans mom. not his friend. very unfortunate to hear about the local laww enforement and how badly they performed. but who would have expected columbine to happen. skimmed thru some of the book. but read most of it. worth a read. ( )

So there seems to be a fairly big divide in those who are interested in learning about Columbine: those who like Dave Cullen's book ("Columbine"), and those who don't. Those who don't like Cullen's work (or think it has an agenda, or that it is untruthful, or whatever) seem to recommend reading this book more, which is the reason that I picked it up in the first place.

Brooks Brown has a unique perspective about what happened in Columbine. He grew up friends with Dylan Klebold, one of the shooters, and was hated by Eric Harris, the other shooter (until the two rather inexplicably made up in their senior year). Brooks could have easily been killed by Eric Harris, but Harris instead told Brooks that he "liked him" and that he should leave. Little did Brown know that the duffel bags Harris was lugging around with him at the time were filled with explosives and guns.

Brooks was also targeted as a potential "suspect," even though there was virtually no evidence that he was, except that his life had been spared by Harris (and, by default, Klebold) and that he had been friends with the pair of them. Reading about what happened during that time, it really does feel like Brooks was maliciously targeted by the Sheriff's department, most likely because his parents DID try to warn the department that Eric Harris was dangerous (something that the department denied repeatedly until solid evidence backing the Browns' claims was brought to light).

Brooks does offer a different perspective than Cullen's; he knew both shooters, and he went to Columbine. Cullen's portrayal of Columbine being this perfect little school on the Front Range always rung a little false to me; come on, we've all been to high school, and I have yet to find one where bullying wasn't rampant. Cullen also seems to think that is one is bullying others, that person cannot be bullied as well; I am not sure how he arrived at that conclusion, but it's not true.

Brooks comes across as a little...I don't know how to describe it, except less-than-truthful. I do have trouble believing some of the things he said (taking credit for a project to "protect" an FBI officer's son, for example), but overall, I think this adds some additional information to Columbine, for those who are interested. ( )

on Friday, July 11, 2008 I wrote about this book:

Finished this 2 days ago. On July 9.
When I started reading this book it felt like I was under a spell or something. Since then I have looked up all kind of info about the shooting, the shooters and the victims.

Downloaded the Columbine Report (11.000) pages.

Very interesting book

10 out of 10 ( )

"I saw my best friend from grade school become a mass murderer."

This is the third book on Columbine I've read this month. The first was heavily steeped in religion, the second was fairly clinical and this one was a first-person account. I think it's been the best of the three, it's certainly been the most enjoyable. I don't know exactly what I expected from this one. I had of course read Brooks Brown's name before and I was aware that he personally knew the two boys who perpetrated the shootings. But once I saw the second author's name I guess I thought that Brooks probably had very little to do with the book, that the publishing industry just wanted his name to sell copies. I was very wrong. Brooks' tale and Mr. Merritt's remarks are separated and I have to say that Brooks writes very well. It's an interesting tale, a well-told one and at the end, it left me with a sense of hope. ( )