Customer Reviews

Day of Reckoning: The Massacre at Columbine High School

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1 star:		(51)

 

 

The book begins with the assumption that the underlying reasons/processes that led to the massacre at Columbine high school by Harris and Kleebold would be focus of the material. Instead, the author loses site of the issues with long and often irrelevant passages about things that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the book. Murphy goes on and on about the unmeaningful details of Hitlers Third Reich and neo-nazism. From the large amounts of information about these topics one would get the impression that the books was more about the Nazi's rise to power and the tragedies of World War II then about Columbine. There are several generalizations in his arguments regarding the relationship between violence, the Internet, and video games that provide no foundation to motivating these individuals to kill. Parents take away the video games from children or they will be transformed into murders! I was interested in the so called "jock elite" influence in the teenage culture. This is the only are where I felt he made valid points to support his assumptions.

There is no continuity in moving from subject to subject leaving the reader frustrated at times. You begin to think he is about to make a relevant point but are disappointed by the lack of cohesion in the writing. Points are repeated unnecessarily and the grammatical errors are annoying. Overall the book tries to capsulate very complex issues into very general terms with little or no supporting evidence. This books "falls short" in many ways of the initial expectations you have when start to read it.

Day of Reckoning was a book, at least according to the title, about the Columbine High School shooting which took place in April of 1999. The perpetrators, Erik Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting rampage in which they killed and wounded a number of their classmates. Murphy tried very hard to present as much background information into the shootings in order to explain the motive behind the shootings. Unfortunately, there was just too much information presented which at times seemed very difficult to follow the subject matter. For example, there was just too much information about the Internet, modems, and computers as well as way too much information on certain music bands which Erik and Dylan were fans of. Murphy also wrote way too many personal comments in order to drive his point. In my opinion, a book such as this should present the facts in a scholastic and unbiased manner. Murphy clearly did not just present facts but rather mix some facts with his personal opinions. Another big problem was that there way too many grammatical errors in the text. Whoever was responsible for grammatical correctness of the book certainly failed their job.

When I first picked up this book and read the cover, I had the impression that it would be filled with revealing facts and sleuthful connections related to the Columbine shootings. I must say, with great disappointment and more than a little disgust, that this book contains very few facts of any relevance to the event at hand. In addition, the author does a magnificent job of proving his profound ignorance in relation to several "leading" topics in his book: the Internet, teenage culture, and modern music, movies & video games. I would only recommend one read this book if they are seeking a strong example of how NOT to write. Aside from the numerous spelling and grammatical errors, I found this book to be filled with highly subjective and poorly stated views, which clearly revealed the author's ignorance on the subjects he claims to approach in a factual manner. The various facts that have been presented in this book, are only loosely connected to the main topic, and do nothing to support what are obviously the author's highly subjective opinions, presented in abundance.

Is this book really about Colombine? Or is this Murphy's opinion on life? He is supposed to tell the story of Dylan and Eric and explain the facts of what happened in April 1999 at Colombine High School. He talks about everything except what happens that day. He talks the Nazis,SWAT team tactics, and the movie "Matrix" really well, but as far as Colombine, we know the same information we knew about the situation before we read Murphy....

If one were to harvest every bad seed that fell from every evil that has befallen our race in it's twentieth century,one would apparently arrive at the root cause of the Columbine high massacre.Simplistic and jejune as this may seem, Mr. Murphy has succeeded in packing this volume with dazzlingly shocking tidbits that create a strand of events that only conclude in the very real possibility that a conspiracy cooked up by Hitler, M-TV and the creators of our modern technology is why these confused and amoral boys were led to do the things they did. If this sort of sweeping delirium appeals to your senses then rush right out to get your very own copy.You won't be disappointed.
It,s just such a sad comment however, that an event of such obvious social proportions has not yet been written.It may never be.It's patently old news by now to most,and that's the real point isn't it?

If I were to say that this book was worthy of purchasing or even taking the time to read, I would be a liar. Along with the internet, Mr. Murphy must have never heard of "spell checks" or "proofreading before publishing to avoid horrible mistakes." Mistakes that were the most obvious were the spelling errors, the grammar confusions, and the inconsequential rambling about slightly related but primarily mind numbing details. Yet this book still managed to have one redeeming lesson to be learned. You don't have to be a good writer to have a book published.

The author needed to invest in an editor. He makes some good points but due to the poor grammar and writing style it's hard to keep your attention. Had he stuck to one thing it like a wand developed riter is supposed to then the book might have been good. Due to his single causality however we don't see what really ent on in columbine. He should have used more personal interviews i think what would've kept the interest of the reader.

The author needed to invest in an editor. Throughout the book he begins making a point, but then goese of onto something different. This left me wanting more. I think he should have used more personal interviews maybe even traveled to the school, but he didn't. He uses single casuality throughout much of the book. Had he stuck to one point and went along with it the book might have been good, but there're to many random points within it to keep my attention. I thought this book was awful.

John, Murphy beats around the bush abous his subject, and does not get straight to the point. He doesn't even give good supporting evidance or facts to support what he is saying. Eventhough editors reread his book for errors, there are still MANY grammer errors! Spell check on a computer could do a better job. A big factor that bothered me was how Murphy hardly mentioned Eric and Dylan until the the last two chapters of the book. Murphy would talk about subjects that did not even pertain to the Columbine incident.

Reading this book left me with many questions. First, what was the author trying to convey to the reader? Second, was the authors intent to confuse the reader by jumping from one point to another with no link to the previous point?

In the end, I certainly would not recommend this book and my expections were clearly not met. Also, some good editing would have been helpful.