Book Review: Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes is a page turner. I like a novel that grips me and takes me inside the characters' lives. Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes is that kind of novel.

Nineteen Minutes takes place in Sterling, New Hampshire, a small town which is like any other small town. Until one day the unspeakable happens. There is a school shooting.

Jodi Picoult takes us down many paths in this story. Josie Cormier is the teenage daughter of the judge who sits in on this case. Josie does not remember anything that went down that day. She also could be the star witness for the state. Peter Houghton, the shooter, had been her friend since they were small children. In fact, Peter's mom delivered Josie for she was the midwife at her birth. Complicated relationships between friends and the relationships within these families give insight as to why there are no easy answers to life.

Another path that Jodi Picoult leads us down is to what our children endure in school. The social behaviors that happen and what is considered "normal" exchanges, what is "overlooked", and what are the "excuses" given for behaviors that are potentially harmful. What are considered behaviors that are "not tolerated" and yet there may be no plans in place to deal with these intolerances.

What Jodi Picoult does in Nineteen Minutes is let us look into the shooter's life and his parents, Lacy and Lewis. When a school shooting occurs we often think "What is wrong with those parents? Why didn't they know what their kid was up to? They should have known something!" What would make someone like Peter get to the point where he would go into a school and start shooting? How did Lacy and her husband get to the point where they did not know that their son would act out in such a violent way? How does any parent become so distant from his or her own child? Is it possible for a child to become an enigma to his or her parent? Do you know everything about your child(ren)?

Lacy and Lewis stood in critical judgement of the town. Jodi Picoult examines the lives of these two people and now this tragedy affected them. Was their son a victim as well? What was thier loss? How were their lives destroyed by event?

When Carl Roberts IV entered the West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot ten schoolgirls and then himself, it resulted in five of those children dying. Despite five girls being severely injured and five girls being buried in that community, the Amish extended their forgiveness and love to the family of Carl Roberts IV. I am sure there were a lot of mixed feelings and confusion as to why the Amish would do this after Roberts murdered and injured their own.

Jodi Picoult takes us to the other side in Nineteen Minutes, the side where we have to question our right to judge the family of the shooter, the shooter, and even the victims. She brings up responsibility of our society.

Jodi Picoult writes about issues in her books that follows along specific areas: legal, ethical, social, and medical. She always has a twist at the end of the story and Nineteen Minutes does not disappointment. The story is told through the viewpoints of main characters who hold critical information to the plot. As the information unfolds entwined through the characters and their relationships you learn how the tragedy has affected their lives from the first second of the nineteen minutes to the first day the story began in the lives of Lacy and the Judge Alex Cormier.

Jodi Picoult took a very disturbing and real subject that has touched our lives too often over the years and presented a novel that allows us to think, reflect, and question more about our schools, our society, the policies our schools have, tolerance, intolerance, what we need to teach our children, and what behaviors we need to model as adults.

I highly recommend Nineteen Minutes as a book read for those in a book club and for anyone who enjoys reading.