one of us

A page-turner. Gripping, horrifying. At the end of the day, an extraordinary report: Seierstad is a journalist and so she refrains from overt analysis. That's fine but I found myself wanting a little more -- I guess that's for a different book. Without saying so explicitly, she comes down on the side of those who don't think Breivik is/was psychotic. I followed the story a little at the time and so there were not a lot of surprises -- Breivik's early life was not happy, but there's no shocking revelation in there. The victims and their families that Seierstad highlights were also pretty normal in their context. One thing did take me aback, though: just how unbelievably incompetent the Norwegian police and military response to the bomb blast and then the shootings was. Seierstad clearly shares the anger of some of the victims' families that the response was botched so badly at so many points.