Living the Chelsea Life: 19 Minutes

"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." (Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes, pg. 5)

What you have just read is the first paragraph of the powerful novel written by Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes. I have just finished reading this novel and honestly, it has a jaw dropping end. I'm someone who always reads the last chapter, so I somewhat thought I knew the ending the entire time, but once I got to the final chapters I realise I had been incorrect. The last chapter of any book or novel generally isn't where you will find the ending of the story. It may literally be the end of the book but it is more of a cool down chapter. Like when your short distance running. You should never full speed run and then just stop instantly, you need to slowly decrease in speed to help your body and heart rate to recuperate. That is like the last chapter of a book. Anyways, I have just finished reading this novel and it was amazing. I usually regret reading books because as soon as I start them I cannot put them down until I have finished them. I can't do anything else. So, when I started it I, of course, had assignments and other work to complete but I just couldn't put the book down. I am a big fan of Jodi Picoult's style of writing. Most of her novels include some sort of a crime and that interests me. I highly recommend it to everyone. I may be a fan of Jodi Picoult novels but I still encourage everyone to read it. I had to stop an questions what I would have done in the same situation, would I have acted the same way as the characters. It really makes you stop and think about justice and what you believe to be right and wrong and to think about revenge and consequences.

To finish of this review I will leave you with the blurb of the novel.

Nineteen Minutes Blurb:

Intricately textured and rich with psychological and social insight, Jodi Picoult's novels grab the readers by the throat from page one and never let go. As emotionally charged as any she has written, Nineteen Minutes is one of her most powerful works to date.

Set in a small town in the wake of a horrific school shooting, Nineteen Minutes features the return of two beloved Picoult characters -- Jordan McAfee, the lawyer from The Pact and Salem Falls, who once again finds himself representing a boy who desperately needs someone on his side; and Patrick Ducharme, the intrepid detective introduces in Perfect Match, whose best witness is the daughter of the superior curt judge assigned to the case. As the story unfolds, layer after layer is peeled back to reveal some hard-hitting questions about the nature of justice, the balance of power and what it means to be different.

Nineteen Minutes is a riveting, thought-provoking tale with a jaw-dropping finale.