Reception
The book received generally favorable reviews by critics, for the writing, character development, plot twists, and the moral issues raised, including peer pressure, popularity, self-image, school bullying, betrayal and deception, sexual orientation doubt, teen dating violence, suicide, video game violence, single parenthood and communication barriers between adolescents and adults.
The Associated Press acknowledged that although Peter's guilt cannot be in doubt from a legal perspective, it is hard for readers to know where to put the blame as the story unfolds. Rocky Mountain News agreed, stating that while the beginning shooting scene makes it "painfully clear who the victims and killer are. As the novel unfolds, Picoult succeeds in lifting those assumptions up for scrutiny, until villains and victims seem to blend into a motley jumble of alliances and rejection."
The Free Lance-Star mentioned that Nineteen Minutes created a two-sided story that helps readers understand everything about the school shooting, which is more than what normal media coverage will provide about this type of tragedy. The New York Times praised Picoult's writing, commenting that she "writes articulately and clearly, making her all too much of a rarity among popular authors." The Washington Post called the book not only a thriller that is "complete with dismaying carnage, urgent discoveries and 11th-hour revelations", but also a source of serious moral questions about relationships between children and adult, and among children themselves. The Boston Globe considered Nineteen Minutes "an insightful deconstruction of youthful alienation, of the shattering repercussions of bullying, and the disturbing effects of benign neglect."
An ambiguous point in the story is the identity of the author of the handwritten journal entries at the start of the book chapters, with New York Times saying this writer may or may not be Peter, although "it doesn't sound like him", and Hippo Press analyzing that whether or not the writer is identified "doesn’t matter"; the author maybe either Josie or Peter, and the point is that the diary pieces "provide insight into the workings of the teenage mind", showing that they are "not all that different." Peter, the shooter, is also noted by USA Today as a lonely bullied student more similar to the offender in Heath High School shooting in Paducah, Kentucky than the offenders in Columbine High School massacre (Both shooting incidents are mentioned in the story and used by Picoult as materials for research).
Read more about this topic: Nineteen Minutes
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)