Nineteen Minutes

I should disclose the fact (to new readers or those wandering in from Google) that I am a Jodi Picoult fan. I have liked everything she’s written and I think I’ve read everything she’s written except her new Wonder Woman comics (and I am going to get those!). Some of her books I’ve liked more than others. The Pact is and probably always will be my favorite. Nineteen Minutes has no surprises if you are a Picoult reader, you probably figured out the ending long before you finished the first half of the book.

Nineteen Minutes does what all Picoult novels do – it takes a very very difficult subject involving teenagers and parents and spins it hard. It isn’t a feel good book, though there are moments when you will feel good. It doesn’t have a happy ending, none of her books really do. How could books about teen suicides and school shootings even have a happy ending? They can’t and they shouldn’t and that is why I am a Picoult fan. She takes those horrible difficult things that can and do happen to good people (and good teens) and she tells the stories that come along with them. She puts a parent’s worst fears on paper.