Nineteen Minutes is Jodi Picoult’s most recent novel, and I predict it will become her best seller to date. It focuses on the events leading up to and following a high school shooting.
Peter Houghton, picked on by school mates from the first day of kindergarten, enters Sterling High, and in nineteen minutes kills ten and wounds another nineteen students.
In typical fashion, Picoult shapes her story by providing various perspectives. We are able to put the story together from Peter’s perspective as well as that of his parents, Judge Alex Cormier, Cormier’s daughter Josie – a student in the school on that day, Patrick – a detective on the case, Jordan – Peter’s attorney. We are able to see all the characters as “human” – sympathetic but faulted.
Picoult has always been a great story-teller, and in this novel, she is able to take a ripped from the headlines topic, and create a fictional story that makes the reader think. Justice is served in the novel, but there is a surprise ending and some twists and turns to keep the reader turning pages.
With that said, my first reaction upon finishing the novel was, “that’ll make a great movie”. I then realized how sad that reaction was.