Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

In the book Nineteen Minutes, Peter Houghton is a seventeen year old boy that doesn’t quite fit in. Peter Houghton is a geek that goes to Sterling High School, located in Sterling, New Hampshire. When Peter is first introduced, we see him as an innocent little boy that doesn’t know how to stick up for himself. We see this when Peter is in kindergarten when an older kid on the bus throws Peter’s lunchbox out the window of the bus, and Peter doesn’t know what to do about it. Peter’s father introduces Peter to guns when he is a little boy. Peter has an idea of what to do with the guns, but doesn’t know how to completely use them. Peter’s only friend at this age is Josie Cormier. Josie often sticks up for Peter when people start picking on him. Josie accepts Peter for who he is, but as they get older, their friendship slowly breaks apart. When Josie and Peter enter into high school, they are no longer friends because Josie has become one of the popular kids. She no longer cares about Peter, and she leaves him behind just like everyone else. Josie starts to make fun of Peter, and Peter cannot believe that Josie would do this. Peter doesn’t know what to do. Peter creates a video game to escape his problem. In this video game, the jocks are the target. This video game gives Peter the idea which ruins the lives of many people at Sterling High School. Peter plans an attack on his school. He first plants a grenade in the parking lot at the high school. The grenade blows and the students become scared. Peter grabs four guns out of his car and heads inside of the school. Peter shoots at everyone he sees. Peter begins shooting in the cafeteria and then he makes it all the way to the gym locker room. In all Peter kills ten people and wounds nineteen. Out of the ten people he killed, nine were students and one was a teacher. Detective Ducharme finds Peter in the gym locker room, at the end of his rampage, with unconscious Josie and Matt Royston, Josie’s boyfriend. What was unusual about Matt was that he had been shot twice, in the stomach and in the head. Later, we find out that Peter didn’t shoot Matt in the stomach. Josie shot him. Josie is then sentenced to five years in the woman’s penitentiary. Peter, in the mean time, is being tried for the murders. He is sentenced to life in prison, but one month later he commits suicide in his jail cell.

This novel contains flashbacks from up to seventeen years before the shooting. The most important settings in the novel are Sterling High School, where the shooting happens, and in the court, where Peter’s trial is at. I really enjoyed reading this book. This book made me think about how fortunate I am that this hasn’t happened to me. This book also made me realize that this good happen to anyone at anytime.

One question I had about this novel was why does Jodi Picoult switch timeframes throughout the novel?