Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five....In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge. Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. A school shooting. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

I cried in the very first chapter, and many others. No one could ever imagine what or how something like this could ever happen. After I finished this, I got scared. What if someone being bullied, anyone, would just get up one day and start shooting your very own school. Something likes this can happen and it has. Even though this is fiction. This novel just made you think about it and it was just very disturbing.

The writing was fantastic. The characters acted on how I would of thought they would act after a shooting in a small town, or any town, in other words, they were very real characters. Even though I'm not a big fan of alternating chapters or sections in a chapter, I felt this one was definitely necessary. It wouldn't of been as good as a novel without knowing what was going on in Peter's head and Josie's and Jordan's and Peter's parents, etc. Even though it was a long novel, it was worth it. People, anybody, really, will learn something from this story, no doubt.

Read On!

Kelsey