Book Review: NINETEEN MINUTES

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes is a book about the fine line between victim and aggressor. Set in Sterling, New Hampshire, it follows the life of two childhood friends, Peter Houghton and Josie Cormier. Over the years, the distance between the two begins to grow, and they go their separate ways. Whereas Josie becomes one of the most popular girls in school, and starts dating Matt Royston, a well-known jock, Peter becomes a “freak”, ostracized and bullied by the very same people Josie hangs out with, and this eventually leads to him bringing four guns to his high school and shooting ten students dead.

This book is written in an extremely realistic way, dealing with real-life problems such as bullying and its repercussions. Peter, who has had to deal with bullying from everyone, even his own brother, tries to seek help from teachers and family – and yet, none of them seems to pay any attention to his problems, and in one particular instance, he is even punished for fighting back. This leads us to consider all the other instances of bullying in the world, and how we can do more for the bullied, how we should do more to help them instead of just standing at one side, much like how Josie does – although she does not take part in the bullying, she does not stop it either, leading to Peter’s feeling of isolation, which eventually leads to him shooting and killing ten kids in his high school.

Another thing the book deals with well is how the world is not black and white – instead, it is in shades of grays. As mentioned above, much of this book is about the fine line between victim and aggressor. Peter turns up at his high school shooting ten students dead – in this instance, he is the aggressor. And yet we are then shown the many moments when he is bullied, shoved into a locker, even had his pants and underwear pulled down in front of the whole canteen, and we start sympathising with him, because at one point, he is the victim too, and he becomes the aggressor simply because there is no one around to listen to him. The blame cannot be put on Peter alone, because the bullies are the ones who pushed him to that point, and yet at the same time, he is at fault for actually killing ten students.

All in all, Nineteen Minutes is unlike many of the books for young adults out there nowadays – it’s not just about romance or teenage angst. It’s about showing people how not everything can be seen in black and white, how the line between right and wrong so often blurs, such that we no longer know who is at fault, and hence, it is definitely a book worth reading.

Rating: 4/5

For 15 and above