Book review #3: Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

So I just finished reading ‘Ninteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult. This is the first book I have ever read by Picoult. I had known she was popular, but for some reason I had always put off reading her books.

This novel is centred on the character of Peter Houghton, who for the entirety of his schooling has faced verbal and physical abuse by his classmates. Josie Cormier was his best friend and the only person he could count on growing up, although she soon succumbed to peer pressure, absorbed by the façade that everything is better when you are part of the ‘popular’ crowd. Coincidently, this crowd are the ones instigating the harassment towards Peter.

Soon the bullying got too much for Peter and one March morning he enters his school heavy laden with guns and starts shooting. Ten people were killed, forever changing their town and many are left calling for justice and answers.

As you can probably tell, this novel is full of thrill and intensity, although it was also full of psychological and social insight. I was totally unaware of the many different ways bullying can affect someone psychologically and the lengths people will go JUST to be accepted. I think these social issues really resonate with many today, especially those in high school. I felt so horribly sad that people are made to feel so empty and worthless around the world to this day. We should have grown past this by now!

Picoult described everything in this novel intricately, patiently and with great awareness which is such a credit to her. She allowed me to understand each character and the entirety of the story line by switching from past to present tense character accounts depending on the chapter.

Although in saying this, this was a slow read. There were times when the book took a turn and something shocking was made aware to the reader and it was page turning and gripping, but for the most part it was so incredibly predicable and the ending was so disappointing. I suppose I had really high hopes for the novel after what I had heard about Picoult, although I found myself thinking when I finished the novel, ‘where was the unprecedented ending?’. I saw what the ending turned out to be within the first few chapters, so I had to read almost 600 pages to find out that yes, I was right. Although I do have to say, it was an awesome story line and the characters were really interesting and different to most books I had read, but I just wish so badly I had been able to get more into it!