A review by babblinglib
One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad

5.0

I kept seeing this book on Best of 2015 lists and was interested in what it had to say. It was a hard read, but you know that going in. It had been all over the news. A man named Anders Breivik had murdered 76 people, many of them very young, on a rainy day in July. When these things happen, you want to know why. It reminded me of reading Columbine by Dave Cullen, hoping that a skilled journalist looking at it from every angle could answer that question. In the end, you feel that all the evidence has been examined, all the witnesses interviewed, but the heart and mind of the killer is still unknown. Seierstad begins at Breivik's birth and follows his rather mundane life year by year. She interweaves his story with biographies of families all over Norway, who while dealing with their own challenges, all had great pride in their young and promising sons and daughters. It is chilling knowing under what circumstances they will finally meet. I learned about character of a country I know little about, except through the random Scandinavian mystery novel. There were times I felt I knew exactly how this would have played out in the US and was surprised and interested in the differences, especially political system, police responses and the judicial system. But for all of that the story is captured in the heartbreaking details, such as a crime scene investigator at the massacre watching dozens of cell phones on the ground light up and ring, many showing the same caller "Mum".