Nineteen Minutes: Revised

The acknowledgment at the beginning of Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult writes: ‘To the thousands of kids out there who are a little bit different, a little bit scared, a little bit unpopular: this one’s for you’. But what does it take to tip a young person over from being a ‘little bit’ scared and alienated into a raging killer determined to avenge past wrongs? This is a question that nags at you after reading this novel.

Picoult’s novels are always guaranteed to appeal to teenagers as well as to adult readers, but Nineteen Minutes touches you deeply in subject matter and timing, given the recent tragedies in the United States (i.e. Columbine or the Virginia Tech Massacre). It is a riveting, emotionally-charged account of a high-school massacre and the high profile case that follows.  In the first chapter it is revealed who did the shooting, but what the reader needs to know is why.

Seventeen-year-old Peter Houghton is a social outsider who has faced years of cruel bullying.  Peter is small for his age, with thick glasses, and he is a computer nerd.  Josie Cormier is his only friend as a child, but she abandons him in later years after she gets a boyfriend who is both a sports jock and one of the worst school bullies.

After one particularly awful encounter between Peter and Josie’s boyfriend, Peter is finally pushed over the edge. He arrives at school with multiple weapons and bombs and proceeds to kill 10 of his fellow students. Josie is the last person to witness Peter’s actions before the police arrive and is thus required to act as the chief witness in the court case.

In Nineteen Minutes Picoult exposes the ugly truth of American high school life with its cliques, its bullies, its wannabes, its jocks, and its nerds.  This novel will keep you hooked until the last page.  It is a reminder to us that even killers may have parents and friends who love them.  Riveting novel that every parent and child should read.