One of my dearest friends loaned me this book. I started it and finished it in one day. I have to say it is right up there with one of the best ones I have ever read. I will definitely read others from this author.
From Amazon.com
Best known for tackling controversial issues through richly told fictional accounts, Jodi Picoult's 14th novel, Nineteen Minutes, deals with the truth and consequences of a small town high-school shooting. Set in Sterling, New Hampshire, Picoult offers reads a glimpse of what would cause a 17-year-old to wake up one day, load his backpack with four guns, and kill nine students and one teacher in the span of nineteen minutes. As with any Picoult novel, the answers are never black and white, and it is her exceptional ability to blur the lines between right and wrong that make this author such a captivating storyteller.
That pretty well sums it all up. This author gets into each and every person involved in the shooting - the victims, their families, the injured, the teachers, and the law enforcement. It raises serious moral questions about the relationship between the weak and the strong, the in crowd and misfits; how these children become who they are, and how we can help and understand.
I liked her quotes and readings before each chapter but you should know I am a sucker for quotes. Here's one:
If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.- Chinese proverb.
In today's society, does anyone think that this line of blurring between right and wrong doesn't happen even through adult life? Look at the so called 'blog wars'. Look at the parents who go bonkers if their child's team doesn't win. Look at how we have this need to be best, first, most popular, etc. Look at how we exit church and who is first in line. When was the last time you said hello to your neighbors or looked at who is sitting next to you? When did we get so paranoid in some ways yet so distant in others? I highly recommend this book for everyone. The parallels are electrifying.
Another point: one thing I consistently tell parents that I don't care how much you THINK your child is telling you everything, they don't. You didn't to your parents. Don't fool yourself into thinking they will/do too. They don't. They keep a great many things from you. Some of those were pointed out in the book. If you are lucky, one day after a few bottles of wine or a couple pitchers of margaritas, you might find out some things that had gone on with your child during their school years. Then again, maybe not.
I leave you with this from the last chapter:
I think a person's life is supposed to be like a DVD. You can see the version everyone else sees, or you can choose the director's cut - the way he wanted you to see it, before everything else got in the way. There are menus, probably, so that you can start at the good spots and not have to relive the bad ones. You can measure your life by the number of scenes you've survived, or the minutes you've been stuck there. Probably, though, life is more like one of those dumb video surveillance tapes. Grainy, no matter how hard you stare at it. And looped: the same thing, over and over.
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