Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I found this novel to be very immersive, thought provoking, and relevant.  It had me engrossed from the very beginning.  Set in a small New Hampshire town, it follows the lives of various locals, who of course know each other, and their reactions and the changes to their lives, after one of their children, a 17 year old bullied student at the local high school, walks in with two automatic pistols and murders 10 of his schoolmates, wounding 20 more.

Because Jodi Picoult does such a good job of introducing the reader to the inner thoughts of the characters, both before and after the shooting, the reader feels like he too knows them, and it is fascinating to read how their personalities and relationships change, as they struggle to deal with their new reality, caused by the shooting.  I have always found courtroom dramas interesting, and this novel with its legal twists and turns, reminded me of the John Grisham novels I have enjoyed.

Of course, after something as dramatic as a school shooting takes place, everyone asks themselves why, and what they could have done to prevent it.  Those students who were wounded and murdered, are never the only victims of such a crime, their parents, friends, and particularly the parents of the killer are particularly impacted, and in the case of the parents of the killer, blamed. 

    The role of constant bullying and the intense need for status among the various high school groups, play a huge part in causing such crimes, not to mention the easy access to the flood of firearms in the US.

While the school shooting plays the central role in the storyline, I was appreciative that the description of the event was not as explicit as it might have been.  I felt the author gave the reader what was needed, without exploiting the event with gore.

I was very glad that I happened to pick this novel to read.  As you might expect, the title “Nineteen Minutes” refers to the brief amount of time it took the shooter to change the lives of everyone in the community.

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