Product Description

Jodi Picoult, bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper and The Tenth Circle, pens her most riveting book yet, with a startling and poignant story about the devastating aftermath of a small-town tragedy.

Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens--until the day its complacency is shattered by an act of violence. Josie Cormier, the daughter of the judge sitting on the case, should be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened before her very own eyes--or can she? As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show--destroying the closest of friendships and families. Nineteen Minutes asks what it means to be different in our society, who has the right to judge someone else, and whether anyone is ever really who they seem to be.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-05
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.com
Best known for tackling controversial issues through richly told fictional accounts, Jodi Picoult's 14th novel, Nineteen Minutes, deals with the truth and consequences of a smalltown high-school shooting. Set in Sterling, New Hampshire, Picoult offers reads a glimpse of what would cause a 17-year-old to wake up one day, load his backpack with four guns, and kill nine students and one teacher in the span of nineteen minutes. As with any Picoult novel, the answers are never black and white, and it is her exceptional ability to blur the lines between right and wrong that make this author such a captivating storyteller.

On Peter Houghton's first day of kindergarten, he watched helplessly as an older boy ripped his lunch box out of his hands and threw it out the window. From that day on, his life was a series of humiliations, from having his pants pulled down in the cafeteria, to being called a freak at every turn. But can endless bullying justify murder? As Picoult attempts to answer this question, she shows us all sides of the equation, from the ruthless jock who loses his ability to speak after being shot in the head, to the mother who both blames and pities herself for producing what most would call a monster. Surrounding Peter's story is that of Josie Cornier, a former friend whose acceptance into the popular crowd hangs on a string that makes it impossible for her to reconcile her beliefs with her actions.

At times, Nineteen Minutes can seem tediously stereotypical-- jocks versus nerds, parent versus child, teacher versus student. Part of Picoult's gift is showing us the subtleties of these common dynamics, and the startling effects they often have on the moral landscape. As Peter's mother says at the end of this spellbinding novel, "Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million?" --Gisele Toueg

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Bestseller Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) takes on another contemporary hot-button issue in her brilliantly told new thriller, about a high school shooting. Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people. Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused Peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting. The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Reviewed by Frances Taliaferro

Early in Nineteen Minutes, Detective Patrick Ducharme walks through a deserted crime scene. Artifacts have been left behind: "the Wonder-bread sandwiches scarred by only one bite; the tub of Cherry Bomb lip gloss . . . the salt-and-pepper composition notebooks filled with study sheets on Aztec civilization and margin notes about the current one: I luv Zach S!!!" It's eerily ordinary -- until you notice the dead bodies.

This is the cafeteria of Sterling (N.H.) High School, shortly after a gunman has killed 10 people and wounded many others. His rampage lasted 19 minutes. As the prosecutor will later point out, "In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. You can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist. You can fold laundry for a family of five. Or . . . you can bring the world to a screeching halt."

There's never any doubt that the gunman was Peter Houghton, a 17-year-old student. Hundreds of witnesses confirm it. Now, justice must be accomplished -- properly, and not by an angry mob. It won't be easy in this small town where everybody is connected. Peter's mother, for instance, is the midwife who delivered Josie Cormier. Peter and Josie were best friends until puberty hit and Josie became a "cool girl" while Peter remained a nerd. Matt Royston, Josie's dazzling boyfriend, was Peter's last victim. Josie's mother, Alex Cormier, is the judge who will try Peter's case -- unless she can be brought to recuse herself. And these are only the most salient connections. Dozens of others must be traced as the authorities piece together why the shooting happened.

Parent-child relationships are central to Nineteen Minutes. When you're a teenager, the fact of parents is unavoidable, even when they're not very good at being parents. For Josie's single mother, it's easy to be a judge and hard to be a mother; everything she says "comes out wrong." To Peter, his parents seem equally inept and obtuse. But then, most adolescents find their parents wanting; so how does a normal teenage worldview turn into a homicidal one?

As Picoult answers this question, the sociology of Sterling High School comes to life: nerds and jocks and brains, adults from another planet, school as heaven or hell. For many of us, high school meant self-discovery complicated by acne, prom anxiety and the perfidy of other teenagers. Though we've never been homecoming queen or most valuable player, we've made our peace with our own uncoolness. But at Sterling, a nerd doesn't have that relief. Bullying doesn't officially exist -- ask any grown-up -- but if you're a nerd, you know what to expect. At the very least, cool girls will look at you as if you were a bug on the windshield. If you're lucky, the abuse will be verbal: The guys will call you freak or homo or retard. On a bad day, they'll crush your glasses or stuff you into a locker. Torment could come from any direction at any time, and you live in the adolescent version of post-traumatic stress disorder. For some adult characters in the novel, this diagnosis is news, but no teenager would be surprised to hear it.

Certainly the reader is not surprised to hear about HIDE-N-SHRIEK, the video game Peter created, in which the underdog gets a chance to annihilate the bullies with weapons found in any school building. Peter's ingenuity is appalling and pathetic and almost valiant; like Josie, he's a person of moral complexity.

The adult characters, however, tend to be one-sided and given to making snappy comebacks with a frequency that's entertaining but not plausible. The judge has such gumption and good sense that her refrain of maternal inadequacy just doesn't ring true.

Picoult is the author of 13 other novels, most of them widely popular, but I came to Nineteen Minutes with no previous Picoult experience. It's absorbing and expertly made. On one level, it's a thriller, complete with dismaying carnage, urgent discoveries and 11th-hour revelations, but it also asks serious moral questions about the relationship between the weak and the strong, questions that provide what school people call "teachable moments." If compassion can be taught, Picoult may be just the one to teach it.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Bookstore Purchase
A great page turner until page 154. DON'T BUY FROM AMAZON! Original & replacement book had many pages missing. Once the story gets back on track
there is a duplicate page from many chapters before. If you want to read
check out the pages at your local bookstore before purchase. You'll love the character development.

Nineteen Minutes
Readers of Picoult will find this novel a bit different. She has taken on an important though disturbing topic. Well researched and current as a school shooting, Ninteen Minutes is a must read for teachers and parents of today's teens.

Happiness = Reality / expectations... I expected more from this book than I got, therefore...
Like one of the other reviewers, the happiness formula (happiness = reality divided by expectations) was one of the most intriguing parts of this novel. However, I felt that the relationship between Alex and Josie was cardboard - two dimensional. It seemed like Picoult had in mind the story she wanted to tell and she wasn't going to let her characters get in the way of it. Often the characters seemed like they were chess pieces being moved around by an omniscient narrator - they didn't feel real to me. And many of their decisions seemed outside of the bounds of what someone would do in their given situation. I enjoyed reading the novel but it seemed to lose steam towards the end... I was looking forward to hearing what Peter had to say on the stand, but was disappointed with how that was handled. The twist at the end had little impact because it was not believable to me. I went along with it but was not emotionally involved anymore. Overall, the novel was fun to read and well written. Perhaps having less characters to juggle would have given Mrs. Picoult a chance to go deeper in creating life-like people who I could connect with.