Product Description

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?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115296 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

Review
'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.'

Customer Reviews

Written with Love and Filled with Exceptional Insights

We've read about too many school shootings. These are intensely sad events as young lives are ended and harmed while sickening fear is permanently released to further separate communities. We all blame the parents for being so clueless.

I wasn't sure I wanted to read a long novel about such an event. But I'm glad I did. Nineteen Minutes takes the bare facts of such an awful day and helps us see the whole experience from every perspective. And the book does so with a kind and gentle heart.

This shifting of the balance of our perceptions is accomplished by several well-performed techniques including many narrators (different students, three parents, the police, the defense attorney, and his wife), connections among the characters, and multiple back stories that reach literally into the womb. The book's theme is far more universal than school shootings: How we grow away from our real selves and the damage that does to us and others.

I was very impressed by the way that Ms. Picoult viewed every character with mostly sympathy, even when you might think of them as being unsympathetic from the facts. Each character is also mildly funny. She doesn't let the tragedy pull us too far away from the realities of everyday life. It's an extraordinary storytelling gift.

If you are like me, you'll probably feel that your faith in people is increased by reading this story rather than the reverse. That reaction also surprised me.

No matter what your age is I think you'll find this book will draw you back into those turbulent teen years when being popular meant way too much. It'll be an intense and self-revealing visit.

Bravo, Ms. Picoult! This is a remarkable book.

Highly recommended.

Sticking to what she knows best
Nineteen Minutes sees the return of defense attorney Jordan McAfee (The Pact and Salem Falls) and Patrick DuCharme (detective from Perfect Match) and is another example of Picoult's skillful psychological and social insight.

The protagonist this time is Peter Houghten, a 17-year-old high school student who has endured years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his classmates. Even his best friend, Josie Cormier has succumbed to peer pressure and is now part of the gang that instigates the abuse. One final act of bullying sends him over the edge and he commits an act of violence that will forever change the lives of the town's residents.

As per the Picoult formula, the town is small where many lives intertwine and the superior court judge assigned to hear the Houghten case is the mother of Josie Cormier, who witnessed the act. Josie is emotionally fragile and the strain of the court case poses a realistic threat to her relationship with her mother, Alex. She claims she can't remember what happened in the last few minutes of Peter's rampage and Peter's parents compound the tension and pressure in the narrative by ceaselessly examining the past to see what they might have done as parents to compel their son to such extremes.

The overriding theme of the novel is the question that do we ever really know the people closest to us? However, it poses more questions than that - what does it mean to be different? Is it ever OK for a victim to strike back? And who really has the right to judge someone else? This is Picoult's most honest, straightforward and meaningful novel yet - if only she could stretch beyond her currently rather contrived plots, she would be a truly great commentator on modern times.

Thought provoking and very challenging!
Jodi Picoult is an extremely brave author - and this is probably one of her bravest and most thought provoking books.

In many ways, it is a typical Picoult book in which, once again, she challenges us to imagine the unimaginable! It must be a very hard book for parents of teenagers to read - especially for parents of teenagers who have experienced severe bullying.

Those of us who live in Britain find it hard to fully imagine the horrors of a high school shooting due to our stricter gun laws, but we all remember Columbine and others that we have heard of - and then, more recently, there was the horrific shooting at an American University. How would we react if it were to happen in our area? In the quiet areas where we live? It is unimaginable - as it must have been to the victims of these events before they happened. We cry with the victims and their families, but how many of us have ever thought about it from the point of view of the shooter? Jodi Picoult challenges us to do this.

What could possibly make a teenage boy like Peter take up a collection of weapons and walk into his school, apparantly randomly shooting students and staff? What could possibly have been going on to make hime do such an evil thing? How have his previous life experiences affected him?

As the book evolves, we begin to see things from the boy's point of view and realise that, despite the unforgivable nature of his crime, he is not totally to blame.

I don't want to ruin the story for you by giving too much away - suffice to say that his point of view and those of his parents as well as that of the other victims of the shooting - the survivors and their families; the families of those killed in the tragedy and all those affected by the events, are symapthetically portrayed - and there is an intriguing and amazing twist at the end which will leave you with a lot to think about! I certainly wasn't expecting it!

I won't say 'enjoy' - it's not that sort of book - but pick up the challenge and try this book.

I guarantee that it will make you think - and should result in deep discussions.