Newtown: An American Tragedy

In lieu of Columbine and other school shootings, this one could be described as more horrible than most, given the way it was conducted, the age of the children involved and the dynamics that set up the perpetrator's actions. The question of firearms, firearm violence and mental health are equally exposed as critical issues for the future.

The author was pretty matter of fact in the descriptions of events, the circumstances leading up to the shootings and the pain suffered by families and the community - making it all the more chilling.

This book, while very sad and heartbreaking, was portrayed so well. I could feel for all those families and wept for most of the book. What Adam Lanza did was incomprehensible and tragic. The "What If" chapter was very touching, telling how both gun control and mental illness are topics that need nationwide attention at every level. As the mother of a child who suffers a brain disorder I see first-hand how broken the system is. Thank you for bringing attention to these often stigmatized subjects.

Mr. Lysiak has done nothing more than a slap dash compilation of local media reports of the incident into book form and he has not done any real journalistic research and in depth interviews of persons directly involved. For real facts I recommend that readers review The Conn. police final report on Newtown school shooting which was released to the public last month. Go to: Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting Reports [...]

Very sad, but informative book on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown. Quite a lot of information about Adam Lanza and his mother. I couldn't put the book down and read it in one day. In one hand, I was reading this one, in the other hand, I was switching off and reading about Columbine. So pathetically sad and unnecessary tragedy if someone could have helped Adam.

The story of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting has been played over and over again endlessly, it seems, for almost a full year at this time. What more needs to be said? What new lessons are yet to be revealed? It was a horrible tragedy, but when can the healing finally begin? Perhaps the authors wanted to leave a historical legacy for future generations. I don't mean to seem cynical, but is this really the kind of book that needs to go public less than a year after the incident? It appears to be factually well written ... but so what? Why now? If you expect to gain some sort of wisdom or important new knowledge about the incident you won't find it in this book. The only thing that kept recurring in my mind throughout reading was the two words "opportunistic" and "mercenary." Read it yourself if you must ... have the stomach, and want to relive the sorrow. There is no morally sound object lesson to be found in this book ... Just more sadness and a desperate need for closure.

I, as so many others, have been greatly affected by the Newtown shootings, and have continued to follow the stories. This book had nothing new that had not been in news articles before, and the author repeats himself endlessly. For example, in one paragraph he wrote the name of a parent, and her child's name 'who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School' and two paragraphs later, the exact same thing, three pages later, the same. He mentions the same families several times, and always writes 'who was killed at Sandy Hook'. Also, he must have written 'the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School' on every page, it seems. When he was writing about the funerals. he broke it down into days, and at the top of one day, listed the names, and one sentence later, listed them all again. To me, this was a way to fill space.

The ending of the book was bizarre, a bunch of 'what ifs', which to me is unnecessary and a waste of time.

I think this book was written in haste to get it out before the one year anniversary. I don't recommend it if you have been following this horrible event because its all been out there before, and am glad that I got it at the library, didn't spend money on it. May all the innocents murdered that day rest in peace.

Matthew Lysiak's history of the Newtown massacre, simply called Newtown. He describes in detail the victims and the community that suffered the horrors of that mass killing of an entire first grade class. He tries to give a description of Adam Lanza, the killer, but Adam Lanza left few clues. Since Adam had no friends or acquaintances so the author can't draw on their memories. If he weren't such a monster, Adam would be a pathetic victim of his own personal demons. Unlike the Columbine shooters, he had no run-ins with the law and weren't already known characters to the school, Adam disappeared from view for years prior to the shooting. He lived in solitude in his mother's comfortable, upper-middle class home carefully planning the attack on the elementary school he attended. While his mother had a record of trying to find his son help, the school authorities impressed with his position as an honor student with few disciplinary problems did little to help her or her son. While she did provide guns to Adam thinking that she could somehow bond with her son using her own love of the outdoors ended up making him an excellent marksman. His father, who seems to have had some of the same characteristics as his son, was out of the picture. His brother, wrongly identified by CNN as the shooter, thought he was simply a geek. The mother comes across as the typical "helicopter" mom hovering over her son. The author sadly concludes that stricter gun laws wouldn't have helped since Adam could have gotten what he wanted. His Asperger's Syndrome made him extremely detail oriented and single minded. He put together a comprehensive spreadsheet that Adam used to analyze other mass killers and to find out their mistakes. Adam didn't "play" violent video games, he used them to hone his close combat skills. The use of "video games" to describe the computer programs is to trivialize them. The Armed Forces uses such simulations to train troops; Adam used them in the same way. Was Adam a psychopath? Certainly, but he was a meticulous planner and showed great self-control to keep his plan going. No fighting, cruelty to animals or other tell-tale behaviors, just a completely withdrawn kid who had no social skills was what he projected and it kept his plans going. Adam left no hundred-page manifesto justifying what he did. Inexplicably, he carefully destroyed the computer hard drives that would have had clues. I doubt his mother ever knew what was going on in her son's head.

My only problem was that the book came out too soon. Details of his communications on line showed up after the book was written. Especially, the telling monologue Adam had with a radio call-in show which showed Adam to be mechanical but almost erudite in describing the attack by a pet chimpanzee on a next door neighbor. The chimp, while seemingly thoroughly domesticated, nearly killed a neighbor. Adam compared the chimp to "mall shooters". Maybe when all these details come out in a few years, Lysiak can do an updated edition.

Matthew Lysiak's book on the Newtown tragedy provides a gripping account of the lead up to the attack and the massacre itself. However, the final fifty pages of the book suffer from a meandering quality as well as an unwillingness to take a strong stand on the issues surrounding the killings.

The book is at its best when examining the background of Adam Lanza and his psychological makeup. Lysiak paints a chilling portrait of an isolated human bomb driven by forces that are still inscrutable. He also gives good insight into the behavior of Nancy Lanza. While not justifying her actions, it makes her much more sympathetic than previous depictions, demonstrating her repeated attempts to get help for her son. The book also features good accounts of the events from the perspectives of government officials, school employees, and the victims' families.

The book also benefits from being very well written. Lysiak does a good job of helping readers keep track of a large number of people while maintaining readability. I read the entire book in one day.

That said, the book falters in its final fifty pages. First, there is a rather pointless chapter giving detailed accounts of the funerals of each victim of the attack. These descriptions offer nothing to the narrative and often repeat details about the victims mentioned earlier in the book. The chapter goes through the funerals day by day, leading to a repetitive quality.

Furthermore, Lysiak's attempts to draw conclusions from the tragedy seem inconclusive at best and at times downright wrongheaded. For example, in one chapter, he discusses the dearth of mental health care in the United States, only to deny that Lanza was insane in the very next chapter. His analysis becomes particularly weak when it focuses on the diagnosis of psychopathy, which he acknowledges is not recognized by most mental health professionals.

His conclusions border on the laughable when it comes to the matter of video games. He repeatedly tries to lay blame on violent video games, never bothering to consider the fact that millions, if not billions, of people play the same games without turning into homicidal maniacs. He even ignores issues that would undermine his argument, such as the fact that Lanza was apparently obsessed with the non-violent game Dance Dance Revolution, which he made the last game he played before he committed the massacre.

Even as he excoriates gamers, Lysiak dances around the issue of gun culture and its influence on Lanza and his mother. Although he correctly faults Nancy Lanza for giving a mentally ill young man access to firearms, he never really considers the gun culture that made this seem reasonable to her. He only briefly mentions the fact that Nancy Lanza came from a family of gun enthusiasts, including a Green Beret brother. His discussion of the issue is limited to one chapter in which he trots out a gun industry apologist.

Finally, although this is a good account of the facts, it is far too early to give a definitive account of the massacre. For example, Lysiak never mentions the fact that authorities found websites calling for the legalization of pedophilia on Adam Lanza's computer, suggesting that an even darker motivation for targeting children may have lurked in his subconscious.

From the Pathology of Adam Lanza to the Pathology of Donald Trump--a straight line. When Adam Lanza shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012 at 9:30 AM to deliberately kill (20 children between the ages of 6 and 7 and six teachers--he unleashed a torrent that would match Pearl Harbor, the Assassination of JFK or Abraham Lincoln, the attack on Fort Sumter, etc.

Decent people were offended by this assault upon the nation's soul; the NRA gun nut psychos saw fit to post unending psychotic screed about the 2nd Amendment ("...shall not be infringed..." forgetting the first part about MILITIA) and used the event to go out and purchase more firearms. Legislatures went out of their way to create more laws allowing people to walk around with weapons (conceal/carry) even weapons intended for war like the AR15. (A weapon by the way, even in semi-automatic mode can fire 100 rounds in less than 30 seconds, even given time to change cartridges.) The NRA gun nut psycho rallying cry: Obama/Clinton/Democrats gonna seize guns and abolish the 2nd Amendment. And that rallying cry got the Sociopath Donald the Trumpster elected President. A person who was endorsed by only two newspapers (one being the National Enquirer) most refusing to endorse him citing his lack of experience in government, his mental instability, his questionable business and personal ethics, his shallow mentality whereby subtly of thought on the issues seems to elude him. (Trumpster on Health Care: "Who knew the topic was so complicated?") But his rabid followers cared for none of these shortcomings; he was the outsider who was going to "drain the swamp"; get America great again, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, NOT seize guns or abolish the 2nd Amendment!

This is not to say, communities fought against the preponderance of military grade weaponry--like the AR15, which the NRA gun nut psychos insist is nothing more than a barely adequate plunking machine for hunting squirrels. (This falsehood in boldface opposition to the fact that this so called innocuous weapon killed those twenty children and six adults.) Several communities legislated against this kind of military grade weaponry only to be sued by the NRA for undue infringement of the 2nd Amendment. Appellate Justices (sickened by the gun violence killing innocent people and maybe disgusted with the unending psychotic screed about the 2nd Amendment) seemed to approve these local limitations on weapons intended for war.

NEWTOWN: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Matthew Lysiak, of the New York Daily News, produced a book about the tragedy within maybe 6 months of the Tragedy. It is surprising detailed and accurate. Adam Lanza did in fact use an AR15 to murder, and the police did pull a long rifle out of the trunk of his car; somehow that all got confused by conspiracy theorists who wanted to see something different. One of the more interesting details that shed light on subsequent police shootings of Black citizens. One parent (dressed in military fatigues) arrived at the school to get his daughter not realizing that Adam Lanza was acting out the Tragedy, When the police came upon him, they demanded he raise his hands, get on the ground, etc; police unaware of the parameters of the attack had only to assume the worst. The Janitor also had similar treatment from police, thinking he might be part of the attack till the Janitor convinced them otherwise. Both the parent and Janitor were lucky they didn't get shot themselves by the police; police have to assume the worst and they have only split seconds to make that decision. A moment of low comedy: one of the teachers, with students, refusing to open the door when police knocked, demanding to see badges, thinking this might be a trick of the shooter. She finally opened the door for the police to rescue her and her students..

As we look at Adam Lanza, plain folk have to decide (for me a no brainer: Lanza--a cold blooded killer) whether Adam Lanza, who suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, was mentally ill or a pathological killer? I will always believe possession of that weapon allowed Adam Lanza towards the ideation of murder, where he could practice murder, and then actually engage in cold blooded murder. He did not snap. This is not a case of "mental illness" but a case of someone preparing to engage in coldblooded murder with tools he had known how to use since age 4. (Lysiak discusses both sides of this; for me the telling evidence is that he murdered his mother first so that she could not prevent him from continuing his killing spree. The second piece of evidence, he first went to Newtown High School but turned toward Sandy Hook when he saw police cars there--again demonstrating discipline.)

I feel badly for the parents of the murdered children. The ache of a lost child must be profound. But to hear from a seemingly large element of society that this event was not real, but a piece of left wing drama, complete with actors, to justify seizing guns or abolishing the 2nd Amendment--is simply an insult to death that no victim or survivor deserves. And here it is June 2017 and Megyn Kelly is going on the air (NBC) with an interview of a proponent of this lunatic conspiracy theory (Alex Jones, who is befriended by Donald Trump). Worse, she is also presenting the survivors of the Newtown Tragedy on the same platform, program, which gives an appearance that Alex Jones represents "responsible opposing viewpoints" when in fact he represents nothing but LUNACY!

And this LUNACY, this far right wing fascistic NRA mentality saw fit to vote for the Trumpster, the most criminal, deranged person to ever run for office of the President. Day 118 of his Presidency saw the appointment of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller to look into Trumpster criminal Obstruction of Justice charge regarding criminal examination of Trumpster Collusion with Russian agents in hacking the DNC during the 2016 campaign. And the Trumpster is what this far right wing fascistic cadre preferred to Hillary Clinton.

So the Newtown Tragedy reverberates like a volcanic explosion and may continue to reverberate in American Politics to undo all the progressive legislation done this past century--all because "Obama/Clinton/Democrats gonna seize guns." Like I say: From the Pathology of Adam Lanza to the Pathology of Donald Trump--a straight line.

I gave the book one star--because how can one love a book about the murder of 20 children and the subsequent pathology that took over a nation that would prefer and vote for a sociopath like the Trumpster? Lysiak's NEWTOWN: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY is accurate and consistent with detail from the Ct. State Police official report on the Tragedy. (It was free and I plan on getting rid of it as soon as possible; would that the nation ...

The author does a brilliant job in writing about the events that led to one of the country's worst school shootings in history. A year later, the author has written about the events with understanding, compassion, and care to everybody involved even the Lanza family.

First, the author does a very good job in bringing the atmosphere of Sandy Hook Elementary School where it was one of the best high quality schools in the area. They had just celebrated the holiday concert the night before. In only five minutes, Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 victims before killing himself.

The writer recounts the seconds and minutes of the massacre with precision and detailed accounts. As you read, you begin to understand the horrors closely.

A main reason in reading this book is to understand Adam Lanza, the lone shooter and very troubled individual. The book offers insight into understanding his mother, Nancy Lanza, who unknowingly provided the ammunition for her son to commit such terror in their own town.

If this book has another message, it is that Adam's mental illness was largely ignored by society despite his mother's quest to help her son. In order to prevent more shootings, we need to understand and treat mental illness more seriously.

He was extremely pushy and downright unprofessional at times when trying to solicit interviews from 1st responders who begged him to leave them alone. Constant requests saying that he was setting out to write the ''difinitive book'' on the incident. Eventually he stopped harassing them and just made stuff up on his own based on what was in the news and NOT the ACTUAL REPORT. If you are looking for details about the people and community, you will not get them here. He should write a disclaimer in the prologue that says, "a good portion of this book was rushed and fabricated for the purpose of getting it published at a more lucrative date."

He was extremely pushy and downright unprofessional at times when trying to solicit interviews from 1st responders who begged him to leave them alone. Constant requests saying that he was setting out to write the ''difinitive book'' on the incident. Eventually he stopped harassing them and just made stuff up on his own based on what was in the news and NOT the ACTUAL REPORT. If you are looking for details about the people and community, you will not get them here. He should write a disclaimer in the prologue that says, "a good portion of this book was rushed and fabricated for the purpose of getting it published at a more lucrative date."

...in trying to understand what happened and why. I read this yesterday just before the Ct. Police Report was released. Anyone with a child like Adam will immediately connect with the frustration Mrs. Lanza suffered as she tried desperately to find help for her 'little boy', a boy who loved and trusted her, but as he grew into the teenage years, in all probability, grew as frustrated as she and withdrew to a world of violent computer games and deeper and deeper mental illness DESPITE the psychiatric help she was able to provide.

Some quotes that stood out for me were, "If one more psychiatrist tells me he will grow out of it, I'll go nuts" (paraphrased). I was particularly interested in learning that teachers had labeled her as hysterical, anxiety ridden, and all the other catch phrases professionals of that type use to describe parents who are just trying so hard to get them to understand that 'something is wrong with their child, please help!!!!".....so frustrated was she, that she did what other families have done -- thrown their hands up in frustration!

You'll also learn that substitute teachers weren't given keys to lock their doors and it wasn't until the custodian ran down the hall to warn them there was a shooter that he was able to lock some of the doors. I believe the two classrooms that were hit the hardest were the very ones who were unable to lock their doors.

Plus I always thought they lived in this huge mansion, when, in fact, their house was very small, according to the video I just watched put out by the State of CT. The house may have been 'expensive' but it certainly was no mansion. As far as I can see, most of what the press dubs as expensive is quite ordinary to any middle class or upper middle class family living in a small home in an expensive town. So, instead of judging Mrs. Lanza for her mistakes (we all make mistakes as parents) perhaps we should look at her, too, being victim No. 1, a mother whose very own son placed a gun directly to her head and pulled the trigger more than once. I truly believe if she had lived, she'd have been just appalled and in shock to know her son had committed such a heinous, unthinkable act of violence.

As a fellow member of the media that covered Sandy Hook that day and native of CT I think for the most part Matthew did a good job at covering the details of the tragedy. However, I also think his book should not have been written. I may be bias here since Newtown was pretty much our backyard, but I think the fact that he is profiting over a tragedy as huge as this is just horrible. I am sure there will be more like him as years go on. He made some minor mistakes in grammar and facts about CT. For example, there isn't a Monroe County, it is simply just Monroe, another small town in CT.
I bought and read the book because I was curious to see if Matthew would get it right, would he be sensitive to our dear neighbors in Sandy Hook. He was for the most part, but while we still question why Adam Lanza did what he did, I didn't want to hear about his mental illness, I didn't want to hear about what got him to this point that he came into an elementary school and killed 20 children and six adults. I am even further angry at the mother for her absolute stupidity.

Newtown An American Tragedy by Matthew Lysiak was quite a book. Matthew did I feel an excellent job talking about the shooter Adam Lanza and how this tragedy happened.
Adam Lanza was only twenty years old but was a very sick man. Adam grew up in and out of schol with a very protective mother who in my eyes defiantly steered him down the wrong path. Starting at a very early age Adam was very withdrawn and never got along with people in general. He took an early interest in firearms and was very good at shooting. His mother decided that taking him to gun ranges and shoot was the best thing for him. He seemed to excel in weaponry and was good at it.
Nancy Lanza tried for years to get help for her son because the older he got the more reclusive he became. As Adam grew he stayed in the house in dark rooms playing violent video games. He even blocked windows in his bedroom and basement with black paper. Many times when he played these games he would dress in fatigues.
There is no mention of Adams father throughout the book other than to say he and Nancy got a divorce when Adam was very young.
The book talks in detail of that fateful day at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It also said that Adam was seen on video camera at the Newtown High School early that morning in his car in the parking lot. There were two police officers that morning that cruised through the lot and it scared Adam into leaving.
Unfortunately for Sandy Hook Elementary he left the high school and went directly there. Adam shot his way into the school and the carnage began. He immediately shot the principal and school psychologist. He then went to the same first grade classroom that he attended.
I do not want to talk about the shootings in the school as they are very graphic. The book is very detailed on what Adam did to the students and teachers. If you can stomach a book like this the book is good.
The author then talks about the funerals for the students and teachers that died. A little something about each person was included which was nice. With all the attention on what happened at the school the town never rang a bell or talked about Nancy Lanza.
Nancy was Adams first victim. She was shot while sleeping. He shot her four times in the head basically decapitating her. I know that Nancy was wrong in talking Adam to the gun ranges. She was wrong to let him play violent video games for fourteen hours a day. But Nancy tried to get help for years for her son. She was told he'll outgrow it.
The book talks at the end about how bad our mental health services are. It is scary! Could this have been different? Probably if Adam had gotten the proper care. We will never know. That's what makes it so sad!
Good book if you can stomach it! It will open your eyes on a lot of things!

My book review of Newtown by Matthew Lysiak by Noah Schaffer

Consisting of only 288 pages, Newtown is a short read. Knowing that this book has only been out a year and seeing that of the 74 current ratings on the store.com (one source I use to gauge my "Must Read Next pile"), I was a little disappointed by the so-so reviews. I take to heart Amzon.com reviewer "Tet68" comments in his review that Matthew Lysiak seemed to "slap dash compilation of local media reports of the incident into book form and he has not done any real journalistic research and in depth interviews of persons directly involved.” I agree. Most of the book is a rehashing from other news sources without doing any real journalism.

I understand that that he must have had a tough time getting an opportunity to interview the families of those innocent victims who were killed, but other than using a confidential source close to Nancy Lanza, shooter Adam Lanza's mother, I did not get the impression that deep research was done here. Where are the interviews with those who were there, who saw what happened? The book mentions that many people knew of Adam Lanza within the community, but no one KNEW him. How can you present why this happened and how we might prevent another senseless killing without more thoroughly answering those questions? What have we learned as a result of this incident? When I read a book, I want to be engaged and learn something. I wish this were more than a rehashing of what the news media did.

Lysiak does scratch the surface on one key issue in this book, which I praise him for: identifying the decline of adequate mental health care in in our country over the past half a century and the ramifications that result. Another praise I give him is, he briefly plays the “What if” game that may have altered the course of what happened, such as was what if someone intervened in the bullying of Adam Lanza, What if he wasn’t exposed to ultraviolent images and videogames, What if Adam Lanza didn’t have access to the weaponry etc. I wish he led me down more of these avenues he presented. Another praise I give Lysiak is that he delves into the psychological aspects of some disorders, which are backed up by input of experts in those particular fields.

In this book, Matthew Lysiak repeatedly presents his personal belief that gun laws would not have changed what happened that day. However, he does not actually provide any research or justification for this beyond his belief. I just wanted more facts and research. I think this book seemed rushed and had more potential. Another book in my “To be read pile” is Columbine by Dave Cullen, which has a 4.4 average rating of 738 raters on the store.com. I own a copy of this book and after leafing though it, I am amazed by the detail and research that Dave Cullen put forth in it.

Overall, this book was worth reading and I recommend it to others.

Lysiak touches on some compelling themes of this almost incomprehensible tragedy but fails his readers by drawing outrageous conclusions with very little support or basis. As one of the more egregious examples, he describes Asperger's Syndrome as a "mental illness." Mr. Lysiak, did you do ANY research on autistic spectrum disorders before rushing your book to publication? And if you did, did you understand that research? Apparently not. Now, whether Adam Lanza ALSO was mentally ill (in addition to his Asperger's and sensory processing disorder), and whether the urge for isolation and related difficulty with perspective in autistic people were ALSO factors in the Sandy Hook murders, would have been worth exploring. But Lysiak barely touches the surface of these compelling issues. And his anemic reporting is not limited to his gross mischaracterizations about people with autism. Late in the book, he states "[s]tronger gun laws would not have stopped Adam Lanza from walking into Sandy Hook Elementary School." WHAT????? Did the NRA give you an advance? Yes, Mr. Lysiak, we get your point that as a 19 year old Adam already was not allowed to own guns, and his delusional mother did an end run around those laws. But let's start with some assault gun bans that STILL don't exist in this country....Might not those have prevented what Adam Lanza did at Sandy Hook?
Don't waste your money on this book. Wait for Dave Cullen who wrote "Columbine" to do a similar piece on Sandy Hook.

It took me three tries to finally start this book because obviously I knew what I was in for. I felt the book read very quickly. I found this book shed the most information on Adam Lanza and his family then anything else I had seen. Unfortunately I did have to skim through the part with the children's funerals since my daughter is similar in age and I found it way to difficult. However I thought by the one or two that I did read the author showed a lot of compassion and love for the children lost. This story gave several different explanations for Adam behaviors that I found interesting in my opinion this book was written without an agenda.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEYT. This author and publisher of this book should be ashamed of creating a work of such despicable notions. The fact that the first half of the book is dedicated to lambasThis author and publisher of this book should be ashamed of creating a work of such despicable notions. The fact that the first half of the book is dedicated to lambasting and disorting the life of Adam Lanza and his Mother Nancy. The author works very hard to paint this young man as a psychopathic, monster created by an overzealous and destructive mother. When in reality this is a case of a student failed by a school system, adminstrators, and instructors who are now trying to back peddle becuase of nothing but sheer guilt. I am overwhelmed by the disgusting portrayal in this book. Thankfully I did not pay for it and checked it out of the library. It will promptly be returned tomorrow.

The author's time could have been better spent if he had done something to shine the light on the uneducation of students with disabilities. Instead he tries to create a portrait of a non-existent monster. Maybe he should talk with and visit any of the families who must use every penny they have to secure the proper education and services, even going so far as to hire an attorney, to get services, programs, and accomodations which they are entitle to but are being deined.

Finally, I see that the author is making a donation to an organization to secure more services for mental health issues. Unfortunately, Mr. Lanza needed an Individual Education Plan with appropriate planning including social skills and trainsition training as well as parent training, not psychotherapy or meds.

I think that Mr. Lysiak and Gallery Books should be ashamed of this piece of pure trash. Disgusting. 100% trash.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was for many of us the end of the rope. It was, unfortunately, an incident that came very close to destroying any faith in humanity that we may still have had, even after horrific events like Columbine, 9-11, the Boston Marathon bombings, or countless other instances of senseless killing that have numbed us over the years.

To hear that someone had deliberately targeted school children in such a senseless slaughter sent our minds reeling. For everyone around the world it must have seemed horrific. But for those of us in Connecticut in particular it was especially shocking. This wasn't Afghanistan or Nigeria. This was a sleepy little town with good people - and beautiful kids.

The story behind the story is as tragic as the story itself. One wonders how anyone could be a first responder, a parent, a school employee, a parish leader, a journalist or just a concerned citizen and be exposed to the facts of the day - and the tragic story behind it - and still maintain one's ability to hold it together. Matthew Lysiak, a reporter for the New York Daily News, attempts in "Newtown" to report the details of that day - December 14, 2012 - with accuracy as well as sensitivity.

Lysiak does a good job at chronicling the day's events while at the same time giving details on the lifelong troubles that Adam Lanza faced as a person with multiple developmental problems and his increasing mental deterioration as he grew older, as well as the painful attempts on the part of his mother Nancy - his first victim - to help him as best she knew how.

Lysiak provokes a good question - was Adam a "victim?" Highly impolitic to ask, but the question is worth the risk. Did his mother's decisions fail him? Did the mental health system not provide - or were not asked to provide - his necessary treatment? It's easy to label such people as "evil" and move on. Lysiak does not explicitly say this, but I will - Adam Lanza was not evil. He was severely mentally ill. He should have been an in-patient (even involuntary) at a mental health facility.

Lysiak makes mention of threats made to churches and such without delving too deeply into where they came from. I would have liked to see a name-and-shame effort to identify the sub-simian trolls who flooded the cyberworld with their absurd conspiracy theories in the aftermath of this tragedy with their disgusting assertions that it was all faked or orchestrated by some government conspiracy to take away guns. The so-called "9-11 Truthers" came mostly from the left in response to perceived malfeasance on the part of the Bush administration. The Newtown conspiracy hacks come mostly from the right who harbor the delusion that the Newtown massacre was a plot to take away their guns.

All in all, Lysiak does a good job. It must have been very hard to do the interviews he did. I just wish he had given a smackdown to the trolls who exploited the tragedy.

As a former classroom teacher who once faced a child with a gun, this book brought a lot of horrid memories back to me--though my story ended with no one hurt. PTSD perhaps? But I read it in an attempt to further understand what is going so terribly wrong in our society. I have my theories and found the theories proposed here interesting.

The author seems to try very hard to present an unbiased account of the facts as he knew them from the perspective of many of the participants in the tragedy. For example, he describes the gun control arguments for some time, but then later acknowledges that the gun laws in effect at the time were skirted by a mother who illegally obtained weapons for her son (illegal since he was under age and she checked forms stating that she wasn't buying them for someone else when she was). He describes the mother's failed attempts to get help for her son, but also reveals her lack of judgement in leaving him alone too long and in encouraging guns as a hobby to someone who wasn't stable. He describes the school's efforts to help him but also their attempts to ignore the mother's pleas for help.

The book was written in an easy-to-read fashion and was hard to put down. I managed to finish it in a few hours even with a toddler taking up big chunks of my time and attention.