My first foray into older Picoult! Jeesh though nothing has changed since '08. The first few chapters were almost too intense. ( )

Sad, thought-provoking, disturbing -- so much hurt inside so many people. It left me feeling uneasy, wondering if maybe all of us, kids AND adults, are constantly trying to build ourselves up at the expense of others. ( )

probably a bookclub book

“A mathematical formula for happiness:Reality divided by Expectations.There were two ways to be happy:improve your reality or lower your expectations.”
― Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes

Most people know that 19 minutes Is about both a school shooting as well as the aftermath of how the small town Copes after the shooting.

I found this to be an extraordinarily well written book and I salute the writer for being bold enough to go into the mind of the shooter which really shocked me at the time I read it as I don’t recall ever reading anything like that by any of the writer ever.

I cannot say I loved this book although I sure did love aspects of it. I felt the twists really took away from some of the book's power. This book did not need any of twists I felt.

SPOILERS:

The ending however sort of lost me as it got a little too twisty and the way things were wrapped up is just weird.

I can’t say this was a happy read but I feel a better person for reading it and and I look forward to checking out more of Jodi Picoult's books. ( )

I reread this because someone on my feed was, too. I was blown away when I first read this, and thought it was totally revolutionary. It's really weird to read it twelve years later in the current climate, with the very themes in the book so common now. The discussions are so different. This book is two hundred pages longer than it needed to be. I had forgotten it was a largely boring and pointless character study, with some story sprinkled in and introduced with a few action scenes. Picoult's writing is still vivid and absorbing, but I noticed again why I stopped reading her: she describes people in broad--almost caricatures. It's incredibly obvious and heavy-handed who Picoult thinks we should empathize with and why, in all her books, and it's so annoying -because I often don't agree with Picoult-. And I'm super lefty-Jewish-Democrat. Oftentimes, I wind up hating every character, and this time, I just strongly disliked everyone. Matt is an abuser, and often contrasted with Peter as a sensitive kid. Josie is a teenager kind of caught between two worlds, but I still shrugged a lot at her. The legal proceedings in this book make for good reading, but are so unrealistic. I only helped in court a few times when I worked as a temp legal assistant, and it was for high-conflict divorces, but--none of this is how it works. And the judge sleeping with a detective while they're both on the case, and even if it's a small town, everyone's just okay with that? Beyond one character raising her eyebrows.

Picoult had a strange need to make a huge cast of characters for this, and have damn near everyone be a doting parent who -thinks- and -thinks- and -thinks- a ton. It reminded me a lot of Stephen King's books: he is so married to all his characters that he has to include every little story or narrative passage he ever wrote about them, which is why his books are so long. It's exasperating, and here, Picoult's doing it. Backstory has its place, but here, it didn't need to be so utterly frequent. This book is stuffed full of backstory and characters thinking. The actual story is sprinkled in the first sixty pages, with some story at the end too, and a few lines in the pages between those. I thought the endings for the final pages were kind of stupid. All that -thinking- and -doting parent- is brushed off with, "Oh, I have this role and career in town and now my kid went to court suddenly and is in prison. I'll talk about it for four long paragraphs but that's it." Um, by the rules of her characters Picoult has set up, this should have actually gotten another book or something. What a cop-out. And the worst part? That could have been really interesting to explore, but no, taken care of in four paragraphs. And the other character's ending had to be dreamlike, use his own clothes, and was kind of unsettling. How unrealistic. (sighs) I was glad when the book was over. I don't plan to revisit other Picoult books because while they were vivid and engaging, I hated their twist endings. Picoult does that -constantly- with no buildup or explanation beyond shoving her moral compass and viewpoints at readers, and--stop. ( )