Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Reviewed by Suzanne Dlugolonski, Teen Services Librarian

In just 19 minutes the picturesque town of Sterling, New Hampshire is shattered by Peter Houghton.  Mercilessly bullied since the first day of Kindergarten, 17-year-old Peter goes on a rampage killing 10 people at Sterling High School and injuring 19 others.  Although there are hundreds of witnesses and Peter does not deny the killings, author Jodi Picoult weaves a masterful story where things are not so easily categorized as black or white, right or wrong.  Blame is not so easily laid.

Nineteen Minutes is extremely thought-provoking and would make for excellent book club discussion.  Who is at fault for the massacre at Sterling High?  Peter? The students who tormented him?  The administration who ignored the bulling for twelve years?  Peter’s parents who endlessly compared him to his perfect older brother, Joey?  More eerily, could this really happen (again)?  Could it be happening right now?

Picoult seamlessly toggles between the present and past, shedding light on the events that led up to March 6, 2007, the day of the shootings.  She juggles so many intriguing characters—Peter, Josie Cormier, Judge Alex Cormier, Detective DuCharme, Jordan McAfee, Laci Houghton—and all of them are given great depth.  So many parts of this book left me breathless.  This all being said, I did find a few faults with Nineteen Minutes. 

First, I don’t know how in touch with the teenage vernacular Picoult is.  There are an excessive amount of “Whatever!”’s and vehement “It’s true!”’s.  Being (relatively) young, I found the way in which the teens spoke to be unrealistic.  There were also several inaccuracies throughout the book (one such example: Peter and Joey are a year apart but a later flashback talks about them at ages 8 and 10 respectively).  There were also those clichéd high school stereotypes—the jocks, the brains, the homecoming queens—that perpetuated an “us versus them mentality.”  Although necessary create the backdrop for this story, when uber-jock Matt Royston announced “Without them, there is no us!” it seemed a touch overdone.  Lastly, I did not care for Picoult’s inclusion of 9-11.  I understood using references to Columbine because that was a school shooting, but I did not see 9-11’s relevance to this particular story, and I feel like it was tossed in to gain the readers’ sympathies, to ensure they were emotionally invested in the book.

Nevertheless, Picoult’s story was so spellbinding I was able to ignore the little discrepancies.  Having a solid 30 minute commute each way, I opted to listen to the audio CD of this book.  I was so drawn into this novel that I was unable to wait until the next work day to hear more and I would bring the CDs inside to listen, riveted, while I folded laundry and cooked dinner.  Nineteen Minutes was truly mesmerizing; I found myself thinking about it constantly, and I would highly recommend it.

This is Jodi Picoult’s 14^th novel and her 1^st to debut on The New York Times Best Seller List.  To learn more about Jodi Picoult visit her webpage.  Nineteen Minutes also has a MySpace page.  To request this book, or any other Picoult book, go to the library’s catalog and follow the easy steps; you will need your borrower number from your library card.