Book number two!! Ok, I finished this one a while ago, but seeing as how I did not finish a new book today, it will have to do.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

In nineteen minutes, the world can change. In nineteen minutes, the lives of the residents of the small New Hampshire town were irrevocably changed. In the quiet town of Sterling, the high school is torn apart when a student comes one day and pulls a gun on the students. Josie Cormier, teenage daughter of a local judge, is one of the key witnesses, but doesn't seem to remember a thing. In shifting perspective, the story details how a community deals, and heals, after this bullied teen takes drastic action.

The story is a common one these days. Teen grows up bullied; the butt of people's jokes, shoved into lockers, humiliated in a multitude of ways that make you cringe when reading about them. The teen then, seeing no other way out, seeks revenge upon those who have wronged him. This brought back some painful memories for me, although what I experienced as a teen (and even young adult) was not even a fraction of a fraction of what this fictional boy goes through. Peter is forced to endure torture on a daily basis, starting on the first day of kindergarten. He is compared to his brother at home, and his parents are not supportive when told about the problems he is having. He is told constantly that he needs to grow a backbone and deal with it. However, when he finally does, the world turns on its axis.

Picoult does a marvelous job of carrying you with Peter in his trials. You cringe at what he goes through, and wonder as the other characters deal with their baggage and with the tragedy that occurs. The telling is poignant, if a bit drawn out at times. The twist at the end of the book is a bit predictable, but you wonder at it all the same. The difference in this story is that Picoult chooses to leave her gunman standing. Instead of a town dealing with a school shooting where the gunman takes his or her own life in the end, she lets him live. This brings us through the healing and grieving process of each character as we await on baited breath for Peter's trial. You find yourself wondering about whether or not Peter should be locked up in a mental facility or put away for life. I found myself hoping a little that the sentence was somewhat more lenient, although I could not picture what venue that would take.

The problems I had with this book was the constant shifting of perspective and time throughout the book. We are brought through several character's point-of-view throughout the story (I lost count on the exact number) without much indication of  who is in charge of the story or even that it changed. That part you do get used to after a while, but then you have to throw in the constantly changing point in time. The story is not told in a linear fashion, adding many a flashback to further understand how the characters interact and what brought them to this point in time. This book was good, but was very confusing to read straight through.