Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Summary and Reviews of Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes

A Novel

by Jodi Picoult
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Readers' Rating (34):
  • First Published:
  • Mar 6, 2007, 464 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2008, 464 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy.

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 stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Nineteen Minutes is New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult's most raw, honest, and important novel yet. Told with the straightforward style for which she has become known, it asks simple questions that have no easy answers: Can your own child become a mystery to you? What does it mean to be different in our society? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who -- if anyone -- has the right to judge someone else?

March 6, 2007

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.

Nineteen minutes is how long it took the Tennessee Titans to sell out of tickets to the play-offs. It's the length of a sitcom, minus the commercials. It's the driving distance from the Vermont border to the town of Sterling, New Hampshire.

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.




As usual, Alex Cormier was running late. It took thirty-two minutes to drive from her house in Sterling to the superior court in Grafton County, New Hampshire, and that was only if she speeded ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
Introduction
In this emotionally charged novel, Jodi Picoult delves beneath the surface of a small town to explore what it means to be different in our society.

In Sterling, New Hampshire, seventeen-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endured years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling's residents.

Even those who were not inside the school that morning find their lives in an upheaval, including Alex Cormier. ...
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Told as a series of flashbacks from multiple points of view,Nineteen Minutes is a powerful read that kept this reader up until 3 am. As always with Picoult, the issues are never black and white and the plot is never quite as simple as it might at first seem. Readers looking for easy answers won't find them in these pages...continued

Full Review (1446 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Media Reviews

Library Journal
Picoult has that rare ability to write about an unnerving subject in a way readers will find absorbing. Her 14th novel, perhaps her best, is highly recommended.

Publisher's Weekly
Starred Review. The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive.

Booklist - Kristine Huntley
Every bit as gripping and moving as Picoult's previous novels, Nineteen Minutes will no doubt garner considerable attention for its controversial subject and twist ending.

Kirkus Reviews
Usually so adept at shaping the big stories with nuance, Picoult here takes a tragically familiar event, pads it with plot, but leaves out the subtleties of character. Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.

Reader Reviews

Suzanne

Several Lessons
As a 68 year old grandmother, I highly recommend this book. Picoult describes the feelings and anger of a child living his entire life with bullying, day in and day out and the rage it leads him to. The sex scene, though explicit, also tells a ...   Read More
Lauren Conrad

Nineteen Minutes
This was one of the best books I have ever read. Being a high school student helped me relate to so many characters in the book. I recommend this book to every high school student, as the characters can all be found in any school. There is the ...   Read More
taaaymanderson3

Nineteen Minutes
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is even considering reading it. Picoult goes above and beyond her traditional love stories and reels you in with the act of violence of the small town of Sterling, NH. Nineteen Minutes makes you have a...   Read More
Kaylee Clark

An A for Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes
Bullied or not bullied, everyone has a story. Some may take a different path than others in life. It’s like the saying we have all heard before, “Everyone is Different”. The main character of Jodi Picoult’s book Nineteen Minutes is a 17 year old ...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is the bestselling author of fourteen books to date. She was born and raised on Long Island before studying creative writing at Princeton. While still a student she had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine. On being told that someone was going to pay her for something she'd written she immediately called her mother who responded. "That's great, who's going to support you?"

Realism - and a profound desire to be able to pay the rent - led Picoult to a series of different jobs following her graduation: as a technical writer for a ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Nineteen Minutes, try these:

  • Only Child jacket

    Only Child

    by Rhiannon Navin

    Published 2019

    About this book

    For fans of Room and the novels of Jodi Picoult, a dazzling, tenderhearted debut about healing, family, and the exquisite wisdom of children, narrated by a six-year-old boy who reminds us that sometimes the littlest bodies hold the biggest hearts, and the quietest voices speak the loudest.

  • How to Be Safe jacket

    How to Be Safe

    by Tom McAllister

    Published 2018

    About this book

    We Need to Talk about Kevin meets Dept. of Speculation in a novel about one woman's furious grappling with the repercussions of small-town tragedy.

We have 20 read-alikes for Nineteen Minutes, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Jodi Picoult
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now