So I couldn’t help but read the rest of Nineteen Minutes straight through once I really delved into the second part of the book. Everything about it is so good! The characters are so severely flawed and realistic that they never stop giving and adding to the story. That, and I think the use of flashback is just unbelievable. I love finding out about the past of all the different characters.
I like the way Piccoult gives us ideas about the history of the different characters by pinpointing different parts of their past, instead of just running down that it was either good or bad or something really general like that. Nineteen Minutes reminds me of another book I read, called Give a Boy a Gun. It’s about a similar situation (two kids are tired of living dreadful high school lives and decide to shoot it up), but the two approaches are unbelievably fascinating. Give a Boy a Gun focuses more on the present, with no reflection on the characters’ pasts. I prefer Piccoult’s way of observing both the present and the past with hints at a possible future.
The past that Piccoult illustrates really infuriates me at times, though. For example…I absolutely cannot stand Matt Royston! Oh my. He really was just an awful person, and while that’s not exactly going to make it okay for him to die… Come on. He’s the one character that (posthumously) stands out to me consistently throughout this section. It seems like he’s constantly hurting Josie and constantly breaking her down and ruining her in front of his friends…and yet they both keep convincing one another that they love each other? Whatever, Josie Cormier.
Again, this is a situation where I just don’t think everything is exactly realistic. Would Josie really take that? I honestly hope no girl ever would.
On a final note…I wonder how much Peter knew about the Josie and Matt relationship, and how much of it affected his decision to really hurt everyone, in addition to the other pains he was experiencing.
Word Count: 343
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I was the same thing. Exactly how much did Peter know about Josie and Matt’s relationship? To some extent we know that he knew the major details that they had a relationship, but what minor details did he know. Could those details be what enticed Peter to commence the shooting in the first place? The question of what Peter knows could explain a lot of his actions.
I also love having the flashbacks too. They give the story a better suspense feeling, and it keeps me interested in reading. Viewing the present and the past helps put the pieces together and makes the book more of a mystery. I personal love mystery books; the way you have to place events and people together without the author directly telling you to the end. Nineteen Minutes is very similar to this example.
Overall, I agree with the love for flashbacks and the mystery of how much Peter really knows.
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