"Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult is about a judge named Alex and her daughter Josie who are victims of a mass shooting that occurred at Josie's school. Josie struggles with self esteem issues, like every teenage girl yet is one of the popular crowd. Josie wants to be perfect so bad that she has lost herself by being friends with this fake group of people. The only person she truly finds comfort in is in her boyfriend, Matt. While this is going on Patrick (from Perfect Match) gets the call and shows up the school too late, as always. Patrick finds himself always too late.
I think the message of "Nineteen Minutes" is to be yourself you have to do what you have to do to make sure you are the person you want to be or are. Josie for example; wants to be herself but has lost herself in the crowd. She has very obvious depression at the beginning of the book and keeps a bag filled with narcotics so she can commit suicide at any point. Yet Josie does not stop and say to herself, "let me be friends with people who actually interest me", instead Josie just goes to her boyfriend for comfort who truly changes her mind. If Josie and her boyfriend breakup she might just go off the edge because she may lose sight of who she truly is.
Patrick is another character who is suffering from doing what he knows is right and being himself. Patrick always has the feeling that he shows up too late and cannot prevent crime, he only corrects it. It seems that all he wants to do is stop one single crime before it becomes worse, which is what he does in the school shooting. The only problem is that Patrick only slightly decreases the amount of fatalities instead of preventing the shooting all together. Patrick did not follow directions and was able to save students, yet he still feels unaccomplished.
I believe that Jodi Picoult wants to teach this specific message through different ages. This way different audiences can engage and feel empathy towards the character that is most like themselves. I think that the author wants to show that Josie is completely helpless without some guide of direction to let her know, it's okay to be yourself. With the character of Patrick she wants to show that you need to follow your own lead in order to commit justice, you just have to trust yourself. This is what I think one of the messages is in "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult.
Why Sasha,
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great blog post. You did a good job summarizing the book, very short and most certainly sweet. I think that you understand Patrick well. I thouht that this book seemed somewhat like a lot of books I have heard of or read, but you did an astounding job making it stand out in the crowd. Most splendid job.
Sasha:
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post! You gave such an interesting analyzation of the story, and used great summarizations of the book to support it. I love how you thought about both Patrick and Josie, not just the main character. I made the analyzation much stronger and more relevant, and also made your thoughts on Josie make more sense. You also used fantastic vocabulary to describe Josie's issues, but think it would also be interesting to discuss some issues that Patrick faces as well. Also, I would love to know more in depth about Josie and Patrick's relationship, and how her boyfriend fits into it. Why does Patrick think he is "too late?" And what might he be "too late" for? Does Patrick have any impact on Josie? How do they help each other?
Great job. <3