Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult: Alessandra Answers My Questions

Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors, so you can imagine my excitement when I was paired up with Alessandra for the Weekly geeks 16 challenge, asking book bloggers to interview each other on recent reads.  Below are the questions I had for Alessandra (be sure to check out her blog over at Out of the Blue).

Alessandra: Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens, until the day there’s a shooting at the local high school. Josie Cormier, the daugther of the judge sitting on the case, should be the most relevant witness, but she can’t remember anything – or can she? As the trial progresses, secrets are revealed about the whole community, threatening to distruct friendships and families.

Alessandra: I always have difficulties when trying to find a genre for Picoult’s books. This is contemporary fiction, of course. A mystery, maybe. It probably crosses genres.

Alessandra: Nineteen Minutes is the time period of the shootings in the high school. It’s also the time period in which many people inside the school died, and a life-changing event for the whole community of Sterling.

Alessandra: One of the main themes of the book is violence, in many forms: firearms and bullying being the most prominent. There are also many messages; the most important, in my opinion, is how difficult it is to judge somene else, and that violence creates other violence in return.

Alessandra: Yes, you can see it was a very well-researched book. Some of the most heavily-researched parts I couldn’t even understand very well. There was a lot about the functioning of firearms, and on the police investigations about how to determine which pistol shooted a bullet, and so on. 

Alessandra: I’ve read My Sister’s Keeper, Second Glance, Picture Perfect, and The Tenth Circle.

Alessandra: This is a very thought-provoking book. I think it would appeal to people who like books that make you think. It’s also a great story, narrated by a great storyteller.

Alessandra: Yes, there’s a surprise ending. I was expecting this, because I found it in each and every one of her books. While reading Nineteen Minutes, I knew there had to be something about Josie’s memories of the event, and that the surprise ending would be related to her eventually remembering everything. So I was surprised at the ending, but I also was right about how things were going to turn out.

Alessandra: I’ve always been interested in the arguments against firearms. To me, it’s just mind-boggling that in a country like the United States it is possible for almost everyone, including teenagers, to buy and sport firearms. I’ve always been against the free use of guns, and I’m even more so after reading this book.
This book also made me reflect about the big trauma that bullying can be for a person – I was bullied in middle school (though certainly not to the extent Peter was bullied in the book), but I had never stopped to think how devastating it can be for the bullied.