Columbine is incredibly, incredibly good. So good that I slammed through it in an afternoon and evening, only stopping for dinner and a mandatory scheduling meeting.

I originally heard about this book as the first complete accounting of the shootings at Columbine High School. And it succeeds on that count, deftly deconstructing the events of April 20, 1999, even as they confused the media, the police, and the student population while they happened. To tell the story of that day is an impressive feat of journalism in itself, but Cullen doesn't stop there.

Out of a 350-page book, only the first 100 pages is devoted to a conventional recounting of the attack. For the remainder of the story, Cullen pursues twin narratives: Dylan and Eric as they slipped down into being ready for the attack, and the aftermath of the attack on both media and survivors. It seems gimmicky - like a parody of a New Yorker article - but works out tremendously well thanks to Cullen's larger goal.

Using Columbine as the title of the book isn't a blunt tool to lure sales in airport bookstores, but an uncannily subtle statement about the real subject; Cullen isn't just talking about the shooting here, but what meanings the event and the word "Columbine" have for everyone involved.

To the media, it was a pair of loners and goths looking to wreak vengeance on those who had bullied and shunned them. To the police who responded that day, it was designed as a school shooting. To Cassie Bernall's parents, it was the summation of their daughter's spiritual journey as she bravely professed her faith to the gunmen. But all these explanations were categorically wrong.

The real drama here isn't the incident itself, but instead how each person sought to work out the meaning of that incident. To Eric Harris, it meant a display of tyrannical superiority over everyone. To Dylan Klebold, it meant having an outlet for the internal pains that wracked his psyche.

Everyone, in the course of the book, ends up working out their own meaning as to what happened. Columbine - which started out the novel as the name of the high-school and surrounding community - starts to fracture both literally and figuratively. Differences in meaning lead to different factions within the community of victims, factions who often argue over how they should interact with the county government, the media, and the watching nation.

It's incredibly interesting and touching and heartbreaking stuff. I'd recommend it to almost everyone from casual readers to "serious" book nerds like myself, and will be shocked if it doesn't clean house when awards season swings around. Regardless of whether you're interested in the shootings themselves, the larger world evoked by this book is amazing.