If you’ve been following my blog, you may remember how I said my brother had to read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult for his summer reading and that I wanted to read it alongside him. (Obviously my brother waited until the week before school to read the book.) This is what I said at the time:
“I haven’t read the book yet, but I did look it up online…the story includes a high school shooting, bullying, and suicide. I think it’s a perfect topic for a high school student to read. Kudos to whoever selected it.”
After reading the book, I do NOT agree with what I said two months ago. For a sophomore, I don’t think this book was a good choice. The beginning of the book is incredibly confusing as countless characters are discussed, some of whom are irrelevant but the reader wouldn’t know that until the middle of the story. The novel is not written in the usual manner Jodi Picoult writes; instead, each chapter is written at a different point in time with insights into every character in the book. I was able to follow the logic, but my brother struggled with whose thoughts were whose.
I also thought some of the discussions in the book were not needed. Things like sex, abortion, parties. I get the idea of trying to set the scene and build characters, but it was a tad too much in my opinion. My last rift with the book was the ending. It simply ended. No real drama. No huge surprise. There is a slight twist, but the outcome remains as expected.
Maybe Nineteen Minutes wasn’t written for high school students. But I was even a little uncomfortable with some parts of the book. I did think the author did a good job getting into the mindset of the shooter. The problems with bullying are real and the book does an excellent job of showing that. But as in most awareness campaigns, there's no solution presented to fix bullying in the book. It’s weird for me to say this (first time on the blog), but I would not recommend Nineteen Minutes. Sorry Jodi.
My rating for Nineteen Minutes: 2 stars out of 5. Get it here!
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