September 2008 Host: Emily (in the center)

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Piccoult

Summary

This is a powerful and emotional story about a high school shooting presented through the eyes of the shooter, his victims, fellow students, parents, lawyers, and law enforcement officials. Within a nineteen minute time frame, ten students are dead and many are wounded both physically and psychologically. The shooter has been bullied since kindergarten and was always treated like a freak by the popular students. The author portrays the insecurities of the unpopular students as well as the insecurities of the popular students. The author explores why something like this could happen and even manages to elicit sympathy from the reader for the shooter. There is a twist at the end that emphasizes the primal need to strike back at those who continually oppress.
Discussion

-Overall this is a very good novel and difficult to put down, even though it a very sad story.

-Peter, the shooter, was often bulled in the locker room. We talked about teachers supervising more in areas such as the locker room, however, having a teacher always present in the locker room raises other issues so that this solution would simply not work. Also, teachers are only human and they themselves just don’t like certain students. This may affect which incidents they decide to follow up on.

-Another question raised was could something like this be prevented if the parents were more involved in their children’s lives. Where do you draw the line, do you search your children’s rooms or give them the privacy they crave as teenagers. When do you trust them completely? Are there different degrees of parental involvement?

-We all agreed that a parent needs to act in that role rather than as a friend.

-There are varying degrees of parental involvement. Peter’s mother was a good mother, however, there are certain instances where the parent could be more involved. Peter felt loved and worthy the one time he was late from school and his father hugged him. For a brief moment, Peter thought his father had been worried about him, but of course, that turned out not to be the reason for the hug.

-The other main character, Josie, has a single mom who works full time as a judge. There is a lot lacking in their relationship which could partially be the result of the mom working full time and oftentimes late into the evening. Both Josie and her mother often find themselves living within self imposed boundaries, e.g., Josie wanting her boyfriend to stop picking on Peter but does nothing herself to stop it because she doesn‘t want to lose her popularity status, and the mother refraining from chastising her child as she is viewed as a judge even when she goes to the grocery store. Not only does Peter, but Josie herself ends up being on the receiving end of her boyfriend’s verbal and physical abuse.

-Even though Peter’s shooting spree, regardless of him having been bullied for twelve years, was wrong, we all felt empathy towards him in different parts of the story.

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