‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult

  In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five. ...
  In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. You can read a story to a child or have your oil changed. You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem.
  In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it.
  In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.
  In Jodi Picoult’s novel “Nineteen Minutes,” that’s how long it takes teenager Peter Houghton to kill 10 people at his high school.
  This is the third Picoult book I have read, and while I found it interesting and entertaining, I’m growing weary of her formulaic writing, including the twists I’ve come to expect.
  “Nineteen Minutes” is not a complicated novel. The plot is fairly black and white, offering up easy explanations for Peter’s actions.
  The teenager has a conversation with his lawyer about the bullying he suffered in school, asking the boy if he ever told anyone.
  “No one gives a crap,” Peter said. “They tell you to ignore it. They say they’ll be watching out to make sure it doesn’t happen, but they never watch.” He walked to the window and pressed his palms against the glass. “There was this kid in my first-grade class who had the disease, the one where your spine grows outside your body —”
  “Spina bifida?”
  “Yeah. She had a wheelchair and she couldn’t sit up or anything, and before she came to class the teacher told us we had to treat her like she was just like us. The thing is, she wasn’t like us, and we all knew it, and she knew it. So we were supposed to lie to her face?” Peter shook his head. “Everyone talks like it’s all right to be different, but America’s supposed to be this melting pot, and what the hell does that mean? If it’s a melting pot, then you’re really just trying to make everyone the same, aren’t you?”
  Picoult’s take on school violence comes down to the bully defense. It lacks depth, presenting Peter as very sympathetic and the bullies as one-dimensional.
  All that said, Picoult does offer up a good story in other ways. She explores the feelings of guilt and anger that Peter’s mom feels. She also delves into the shame and responsibility felt by Peter’s one-time friend, Josie, who survives the shooting and plays a big role in the story, along with her mom, Alex.
  Readers who are looking for a Lifetime-type book about school shootings will enjoy this novel, which does address how it feels to be an outsider and be judged harshly by those who don’t know you.
  Perhaps Picoult delivers a valuable message in an easily palatable package, but what she doesn’t do is dig beneath the quick diagnosis of bullying that so often is the defense in school shootings.