| Rating: | ★★★ |
| Category: | Books |
| Genre: | Literature & Fiction |
| Author: | Jodi Picoult |
In this emotionally charged novel, Jodi Picoult delves beneath the surface of a small town to explore what it means to be different in our society.
In Sterling, New Hampshire, 17-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endured years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling’s residents.
Even those who were not inside the school that morning find their lives in an upheaval, including Alex Cormier. The superior court judge assigned to the Houghton case, Alex—whose daughter, Josie, witnessed the events that unfolded—must decide whether or not to step down. She’s torn between presiding over the biggest case of her career and knowing that doing so will cause an even wider chasm in her relationship with her emotionally fragile daughter. Josie, meanwhile, claims she can’t remember what happened in the last fatal minutes of Peter’s rampage. Or can she? And Peter’s parents, Lacy and Lewis Houghton, ceaselessly examine the past to see what they might have said or done to compel their son to such extremes. Nineteen Minutes also features the return of two of Jodi Picoult’s characters—defense attorney Jordan McAfee from The Pact and Salem Falls, and Patrick DuCharme, the intrepid detective introduced in Perfect Match.
Rich with psychological and social insight, Nineteen Minutes is a riveting, poignant, and thought-provoking novel that has at its center a haunting question. Do we ever really know someone?"
My Verdict: A sensitive matter handled with great care. Being someone who grew in a country where bullying with kids is not so rampant (or maybe there is, but I am just not that aware since I studied in a school where it is not tolerated and given fair justice). But overall, I did not liked the story. Yes, the credit goes only for Miss Picoult's genre, she writes and was able to convey the story really good, but I found this novel to be somewhat draggy. It took me a total of 5 and half months to finish it, and the only reason I finished it is because I got 7 books waiting to be read, and it has always been my habit to finish the first one before moving on to the next book.
I still congratulate Miss Picoult for the bravery she had to write this sensitive issues, and handed down possibilities why kids might run amok in school. And I believe this is just in time and highly suggested for Germany people who are having big question mark why Tim* did that a few months ago.
*For the knowledge of everyone, an amok happened somewhere in Germany few months ago, and the suspect is of the same age as the major character in the novel. Whatever Tim's reason is, nobody knows it until now, whether he got the same reason as Peter, or a deeper one. But one thing they have in common, the computer technology that has been also an issue when this amok started...
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