Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I spent the first day of the new year reading Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. It’s brilliant and engaging - I stayed up that night because it’s unputdownable and I wanted to keep on reading till the end.


It’s about a high school shooting incident, probably inspired by the Columbine massacre. The chapters alternate between the present, which is the aftermath, and the past, on the events leading to the day of shooting itself. Picoult built solid characters and she decribed all the thoughts and emotions involved well. Somehow, I felt like I understand certain things better now. I guess that’s one of the reasons why I like reading fictions. They let me wander on planes I probably won’t ever venture in real life.

I like that the story has a twist, and keeps you guessing till the end. The ending wasn’t too conclusive, but it was quite good. I guess the author left some parts for the readers to interpret on their own. The whole story was told well. I also like how the story includes how the defense attorney and his wife coped with both their careers and baby son. I believe that fictions do play a part in a society, so having examples like those described in the book influences how society perceive the idea of balancing career and home. And it’s not just that. I do think there are quite a bit of indirect ‘parenting lessons’ in the book.

What I don’t like about the book is that it contained explicit scenes and descriptions which renders the book unsuitable for readers below 25 years of age. Okay, maybe 21. I know it’s describing an American lifestyle, but I still think there may be some inadvertent influence to us. Another bit which makes me uncomfortable is when she implies that converting to Islam is something bad or unacceptable. There’s this part where the shooter’s mother was explaining to the defense attorney that she was surprised that his son had turned out like that despite of how she had raised him. She tried to illustrate by using the defense attorney’s child, and I quote the book verbatim:

“What if he turns to be someone you’d never thought he’d be?”
“Lacy-”
“Like, what if Sam tells you he’s gay?”
Jordan shrugged. “So what?”
“And if he decided to convert to Islam?”
“That’s his choice.”
“What if he became a suicide bomber?”
Jordan paused. “I really don’t want to think about something like that, Lacy.”
“No,” she said, facing him. “Neither did I.”

One of the core issue that Jodi Picoult tried to explore in this book is high school bullying. I’ve never been to the USA before, but from the movies, tv shows, books etc high school bullying seems to be pretty common. We do have bullying here in Malaysia too, more commonly known as ragging, but somehow I got the impression that the US bullying could leave more pyschological and emotional trauma compared to the ‘blow the lights or wash my laundry’ type of ragging here. Perhaps what the media (movies, tv shows, books etc) need to do is to present the anti-stereotypes, with believable characters portarying positive traits, in an effort to influence society to imitate these positive traits, similar to the point I already made above.

When bullying, these bullies, who have the upper hand, didn’t really think about the consequences, and when the victims retaliate in acts of violence, possibly in the name of self-defense, they were surprised. Of course I don’t condone any acts of violence whatsoever, in fact I like to fantasize about retaliations that are clever and witty and effective, but the bullies themselves shouldn’t be bullying in the first place. So, let there be no bullying anymore! Enough is enough! Eh, am I still talking about Nineteen Minutes?

I hope I didn’t let out too much spoilers as such that you don’t want to read the book anymore. This is my first Jodi Picoult book. I have enjoyed reading it, and I definitely would like to read her other works later.