Final Reading Response- Nineteen Minutes- By: Jodi Picoult

The book Nineteen Minutes, written by Jodi Picoult, is about a small town in the suburbs that has a sudden shooting.

Causing the whole town to come to an abrupt stop in their lives, and look at what each and every person has been doing wrongly to cause this shooting.  The killer is a teenager who goes to the local high school, and has been bullied his whole life, he kills ten people and wounds many others. He kills people who bullied him from kindergarten to his current life as a teenager, each and every day he is tortured by the same few people over and over again. Little did they know that one day they would be killed by someone who was so helpless to them. This act of violence has been done by one person. A 15 year old boy named Peter Houghton. He single handily killed 10 people and wounded many others. All of those peoples lives were taken away because of something they did to him. In the end Peter ended up changing his life more then he might have wanted it to. In my writing I will show how one child being bullied can affect all the people who bully him, in more than one way.

 Peter was bullied from

kindergarten all the way through high school, and he was hurt and tortured by the same few people the whole time. One example of how peter was bullied when he was younger is when he in middle school:

The other players laughed as he pushed past them. "Mama's boy," they said. "Does she fight all your battles, homo?" In

the locker room, he sat down and pulled off his cleats. He had a hole in the toe of one sock, and he stared at it as if he were truly amazed by that fact, instead of because he was trying so hard not to cry. (154)

 This shows that once bullying starts, it never really stops, Peter Houghton (aka "the

killer") is being bullied everywhere he goes, and this just shows, that over time bullying will add up, and eventually someone is bound to crack. This shows that even the smallest bit of name calling, and what many people in this book think isn't even close to the worst of it, can affect the person who has to endure this behavior.

 Peter Houghton. He is one big oxymoron. Brainy, but not school smart. Weak, yet he has 

endured

bullying his whole life. He's very hard to figure out. I know that when I think of someone who gets bullied often, I imagine someone who is vulnerable in some way. Someone who people think they can take advantage of. I would have never thought of someone who gets bullied (throughout their life) becoming a mass murderer...who kills his classmates. One part in the book that brings up the topic of him being weak, and very vulnerable...but at the same time he is very strong, and he knows his weapons.

"...You don't point a gun at something you don't want to kill." Peter squinted, looking into the barrel the right way. It was blinding, silver, shiny. Perfect. (89) This is just one example of Peter being exposed to gun usage and using guns.

 This quote exemplifies

that at an early age, Peter was dealing with guns, and learning how to use them. This most likely gave him a sense of power, that he doesn't have at school...he is not a "jock" and doesn't play any sports, he also doesn't have any power in a social group at school, because he doesn't have any friends. Interestingly enough, hunting is one of the few ways that Peter connects with his father. His father taught him how to shoot a gun, and hunt. Meaning...killing. Little did he know, that was just practice for later on.

 This book relates to the

real world a little more than I think anyone would like it to.  Bullying obviously happens all the time...but the fact that one person who was bullied their whole life, never got any of the help they needed, and was put in a place where all he could do was kill the people who bullied him is not a good sign. This book relates to any teen I've ever met. Anyone who has been bullied before, or has been the bully, or even just watched someone get bullied, and not done anything about it, can probably imagine what this kind of thing would be like.  I think that what people can get out of reading a book like this, is not only a great story, but...lesson. My goal of writing this, is not only to show one side of the story, but to also show the most extreme possible outcome of bullying. And how one person's experience becomes the experience of a whole town.