The main problem with this book is the title and the way it's presented: as a nonfiction look at the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. Instead, the book is about various mass shootings in the US (and Canada) and how our culture has been affected by these events. It was interesting to see how pretty much nothing has changed since this book was published in 2019 - just more thoughts and prayers and a whole lot more deaths from gun violence.

I think this book suffered from a lot of readability issues but mainly the structure was just super confusing. It was hard to follow where the author's train of thought was going as it sped from a different mass shooting event to historical details about the US and guns. There were way too many tangents about topics that were not necessary to the thesis of the book (for example, when discussing the Aurora shooting, there was a whole section about Batman because "The Dark Knight" was being shown during the shooting). There was also a lot of jumping back and forth between events and then offshoots into history (like the establishment of the NRA or guns as a big US business).

There was some information that was interesting and Diaz's assessments of why we can't pass simple gun control laws and how gun culture has seeped into our nation's core were spot-on. I just wish the book had been a lot more easy to read. Similarly, to say this book was co-authored by the parents of an Aurora shooting victim was odd. You don't actually hear much from them in the book and there's no resolution to how that case ended or what its true impacts were.

This is a fascinating issue that unfortunately is ever more pressing in today's world. But this book was just too hard to follow for me to really say I was a fan.

First, thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the Advance Readers Copy of TRAGEDY IN AURORA: THE CULTURE OF MASS SHOOTINGS IN AMERICA. I wanted to read this book to gain a better understanding of the psychological profile of a mass shooter. However, what I got was a long and detailed history of the 2nd Amendment vs. gun control debate in America, with exhaustive analysis of how each side got to where it is today. There were some good insights related to the pro-gun / NRA lobby's organizational abilities, contrasted with the inability of the gun control forces to organize in any coherent and national way. This is an extensively researched and footnoted book, but the organization and storyline was not easy for me to track, as it bounced around a lot from one anecdote to another. Nor really what I was looking for.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

When I saw the title, I was anticipating a book similiar to Dave Cullen's books on Parkland and Columbine which focuses on the actual events and the aftermath and the story of Jessica Ghawi. It's not though.
This book provides an overview of some of the mass murders in US.

The book wasn't what I was expecting and although it did provide good information, it was lacking and seemed more of a textbook than anything else.

The title of this book is very misleading. I was hoping for an indepth look at what happened in the movie theater in Aurora and the aftermath.
Instead this book is a brief overview of some of the mass murders in the United States. Focusing on the Assault Rifle, Charles Whitman, and then the fragmentation of the gun control advocates.
When the author does mention the Phillips its very brief and I felt very disjointed to where it was inserted in the story.
I would have loved to hear how the Phillips decided to become pro gun control, how they felt the weeks after the shocking murder of their daughter, and what they are doing NOW to spearhead gun control.
The title fooled me, however, the book did provide some insight into gun culture in the US, the mass murderers themselves, and what COULD be done.