Book Review: Nineteen Minutes by Jodie Picoult

Nineteen Minutes is a novel about a high school shooting, the story is told in flashbacks with multiple points of views which include the victims and the shooter and spans back years, days and months. The shooter is not revealed in the very beginning but it’s pretty obvious who it is but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

I was intrigued to read the book after I learnt it was from the author who wrote My sister’s keeper which is has since been adapted to a movie.  I thought Nineteen Minutes would be a good book to read as I had heard many good things about My Sister’s Keeper.

I found Nineteen Minutes to be a difficult book to read because of its content. It was sad reading about the massacre, how it affected everyone and the events leading up to the crime.

The themes that resonated with me were the bullying and high school social status that was featured in the book. I thought of my high school experiences and how there were times when I didn’t intervene when someone was being bullied or said some mean things about people behind their backs.

I also thought about how concerned I was in high school about fitting in and not doing anything embarrassing.  I regret how there were times when I missed opportunities to do things because what I wanted to do wasn’t cool.

I wonder now as a future teacher whether I will be an effective ally to a student who is being bullied and I realised that I won’t always be aware that someone is being bullied.

Overall, I liked reading Nineteen Minutes.  It was interesting to read from the multiple perspectives of the crime and their attitudes towards the shooter.