Title: Nineteen Minutes

Author: Jodi Picoult

“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…. In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it.”

So begins bestselling author Jodi Picoult’s latest work of fiction, which focuses on the aftermath of a school shooting in a small New Hampshire town.

On a March morning in 2007, high school student Peter Houghton walks into his school and kills ten classmates. The novel takes readers on a journey that shows what led up to the shooting and how the town copes in the aftermath of the carnage.

While the story is conveniently stereotypical at times - the lone misfit computer nerd gets revenge and kills the jocks and popular kids - and comes dangerously close to seeming like a preachy made-for-Lifetime movie, the prose and surprise ending make Nineteen Minutes worth the read.

Grade: A-