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Nineteen Minutes
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Product Description
Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens â until a student enters the local high school with an arsenal of guns and starts shooting, changing the lives of everyone inside and out. The daughter of the judge sitting on the case is the stateâs best witness â but she canât remember what happened in front of her own eyes. Or can she?
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #481 in Books
- Published on: 2008-04-03
- Released on: 2008-04-03
- Binding: Paperback
- 608 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
'Picoult, once again, grabs a razor-sharp issue and uses her brilliantly intricate pen to expose all the shades of grey with PERFECTION.'
(Cosmopolitan )'As usual Jodi Picoult manages to bring us a hard-hitting, heartbreaking story. Its brilliantly written with feeling and understanding The characters are believable and you can almost feel their emotions as you read.'
âThis book makes for uncomfortable reading in light of real life school shootings, but the authorâs meticulous research at Columbine in the USA makes the book all the more powerful and authentic. An outstanding read.â
'As usual Jodi Picoult manages to bring us a hard-hitting, heartbreaking story. It's brilliantly written with feeling and understanding of how all those involved react to what has happened . . . I love Jodi Picoult's writing and would highly recommend it for both personal and reading groups'
(newbooksmag )âHer vivid characters have a depth and tenacity rarely found in blockbuster, strong narrative control, a lack of sentimentality, and robust but undogmatic research mark her out.â
'Jodi Picoult is not one to shy away from fictional controversy; in fact, the more tangled and messy a moral dilemma appears, the better she likes it. (Daily Mail )
'Picoult has been incredibly successful in dissecting the pain that family members go through when faced with sensitive and emotive issues' ( Daily Express )
'Picoult, once again, grabs a razor-sharp issue and uses her brilliantly intricate pen to expose all the shades of grey with PERFECTION.'
(Cosmopolitan )
Synopsis
Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until a student enters the local high school with an arsenal of guns and starts shooting, changing the lives of everyone inside and out. The daughter of the judge sitting on the case is the state's best witness -- but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. Or can she?
About the Author
Jodi Picoult grew up in Nesconset, New York. She received an A.B. in creative writing from Princeton and a master`s degree in education from Harvard. Her previous novels include Keeping Faith, The Pact, and Mercy. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.
Customer Reviews
Reads like a film script
Can a book be a compulsive read, a rattling good yarn, well constructed, well written and still disappoint? Evidently, yes. I admit that I couldn't put this book down and yet I couldn't in all honesty recommend it to anyone else I know. It read like a Hollywood blockbuster including the contrived and utterly implausible "twist" in the tale. I'd rather guess the ending half-way through than not guess it because it's so ludicrously unlikely. Don't bother reading the book, because I'm sure the film will be out soon at a cinema near you.
Heavy - in every sense
This big hefty book (I read the hardback edition)made hefty going for me. While it is undoubtedly thoroughly researched, it lacks both fluency and feeling. The characters are two dimensional - I never felt I really knew Peter (the murderer) or his family - and in a book with such an emotive subject, I would have thought it essential to get inside the mind of (and really care about) at least one of the characters. And there are just too many words. The story could have been told in a book two thirds this length, and would have been tighter and more fast-moving. As for the ending, it was largely predictable. The one 'twist' didn't really ring true for me, and I was left with a feeling of 'so what?' One other point: was it really necessary to pile on the agony by having Peter's brother dead from an accident the year before the events of the book? It added nothing to the plot, and made me wonder how (and why) Peter's parents carried on at all (which they did, if anything a little too well).
Nineteen Minutes
This was my first Jodi Picoult book and probably my last. If it was half as long it would have been a much better read but there was simply too much padding. My daughter gave me this book after thoroughly enjoying it herself so this is just my take on it.
