Book Description: 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. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Nineteen Minutes is New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult's most raw, honest, and important novel yet. Told with the straightforward style for which she has become known, it asks simple questions that have no easy answers: Can your own child become a mystery to you? What does it mean to be different in our society? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who -- if anyone -- has the right to judge someone else?

Updated on 27Sep08: Finally read my other copy; adding my comments in case this finds another reader.
Wow! This one really grabs at your heartstrings. My emotions and opinions were jumping back and forth throughout this book. Some parts were tough to read because of the subject. It is so relevant to the times, Picoult has picked a topic which America does not want to discuss and opens it up for discussion in true Picoult style. I really liked that we got in the mind of Peter, as well as other characters. Many times in these tragic situations everyone is left wondering why they did it. Why didn't anyone spot the signs? Why didn't anyone stop it? Here is something to help you spot it. Read this book.
If you are a parent with a kid in school right now, read this book. It may be difficult but it sure is enlightening. If you are a teacher, read this book, take the appropriate steps when you see this stuff happening. If you are a high school student, read this book, take responsibility for the words that hurt others and be kind.

I hope this book will find another reader to share their thoughts as well. I'm really looking forward to reading all the JEs on this book. This would make an excellent book group read.

NOTE TO PARTICIPANTS: I am trying to figure if this was lost in the mail or if it is stalled, sent several PMs with no response from last journaler. Sent another PM today (15Sep08) and hoping to hear a response. If not, fear not. I have another copy and will read it and restart as soon as I have read it!
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Welcome to the Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult International Book Ray (http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6187077)
This ray is now underway. Members are as follows - member in bold currently has possession of the book.
Bookcrosser Name (State) ~ Will ship to:
dvg (NJ) started here and left on 9 Jun 08.
Valentina1209 (NY) ~ US only
Infantrywife101 (NJ) ~ US only
15Sep2008~Note to participants: I am trying to figure if this was lost in the mail or if it is stalled, sent several PMs with no response from last journaler. Sent another PM today and hoping to hear a response. If not, fear not. I have another copy and will read it and restart ASAP!

22SEP2008: This bookray has stalled. Another copy has been obtained and the bookray has been moved to: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6555481/J_11169523 Please join us there.
UPDATED: See Journal Entry 8: MmClinton has restarted this as a brand new ray.

Received today! Will read ASAP

Jodi Picoult is a master a creating intense, spellbinding stories that cannot be put down. Her court scenes in particular are very well-written! I have to be honest, though. As the parent of two high school girls, this was a very difficult book for me to read. The subject matter hit too close to home.

Keep Them Moving challenge #47

sending to Infantrywife101

Reading for bookring. Sorry I registered it so late, I had a death in the family and forgot I had it. I will get to reading it right away and pass it along!
****UPDATE*****
Will be finishing the book today and will have it in the mail as soon as I get the address back for the next reader! :)

After many PMs I have determined the following: This bookray has stalled as of 22Sep2008. Another copy has been obtained and the bookray has been moved to: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6555481/J_11169523 Please join us there.

I am marking this BCID as traveling because I hope it is on its way to the next reader wherever that may be. I look forward to reading future journal entries from this books mysterious journey. If you have found this book, please journal it after you have read it. I hope you have enjoyed it. Please share the love of reading by passing it along to someone else.

~AFTER A LONG TIRING JOURNEY, THIS BOOK HAS ARRIVED AND BEING RESTARTED AS A NEW RAY. SEE JOURNALING BELOW.~

I just received this beautiful hardcover book in the mail from a bookcrosser in New Jersey. Thank you for sending it along! I was perplexed, however, because I had already received it through dvg's bookray. It is an utterly fascinating read....it deserves to be in many more hands! If I understand properly,this particular copy was stalled or lost or something, so dvg bought another copy to continue the bookray. So I am going to be optimistic here! What a great opportunity to establish another bookray and send the original copy on more journeys.... I will contact dvg to see if this is what she might like after investing in two hardcover books! The important thing is that we all keep in in circulation! So nobody should feel guilty at all; life happens! A resurrection of a great book, and at Easter time, seems propitious!

I have now set up a bookray for this volume and will be sending out early in the week to luckof. Here is the order of readers:

luckof (Canada)
sarkiegirl (USA)
oliviapoolside (USA)
valpete (USA)
Nolatari (USA)
cyber-librarian (USA)
skizeye9 (USA)
auntmissy (USA)
GinnyRazo (USA)
Accountkel (USA)
Tostle (USA)
Soleille (Germany)
Katacs (Germany)
Elina (Finland)

Please let us all know when you receive it and when you send it out again. Enjoy this awesome book!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Starting the bookray for this copy and wishing it good journeys! It's off to luckof in Canada....

This arrived on my desk with this morning's mail. What a lovely surprise that wasn't work involved! I will start reading today and then PM sarkiegirl when I am ready to post.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I enjoyed this book but perhaps not as much as others I have read by Jodi Picoult. I found that some of the dialogue appeared to have spilled out from previous novels leaving me sometimes with a sense that I had read this book before.

Overall though a fairly good read. This will be going out to sarkiegirl in the next day or so. Thanks again MmeClinton for hosting this bookray and including me. Cheers!

April 24, 2009 update: While I had good intentions of shipping this off when I said I was going -- I ended up with a horrible flu bug --- I actually just sent this on its merry way today! My apologies for the delay...

Thank goodness Luckof waited a bit (hope you feel better!) because I just got this book today. I don't know if it took so long because I was in the process of changing addresses, but it bought me some time!! I have one (long one) ahead of it! I'll do my best!!!

Wow. What an amazing book. It is not often that I have a hard time going to bed, because I'm reading, or I read 200 pages (or more) in 2 days.

As difficult of a subject as this is, as horrible as the crime committed, it amazes me that Jodi Picoult can see the gray, rather than the black and white, and keep you engrossed in a story that has so many real characters, in a very real situation.

This is my third book of hers that I have read, and I know that it won't be the last.

Thanks to mmeclinton for turning this into a bookray! I may have never read it otherwise!!
sending it to the next bookcrosser tomorrow!!! :)

Received today, thanks. I will get started right away.

My experience with all Jodi Picoult books is that I feel manipulated. I don't know why this bothers me so much with her books as certainly we are manipulated to some extent with every story that we read. The writing in this book seems more professional, she gets better with each book, although she seems to be adopting a Alice Hoffman - ish style of adjective use. This is OK with me, I enjoy Alice Hoffman, I'm just noting it. This book is not happy reading as it is about school shootings, it full of the drama and pain that such an event must contain, plus the usual Picoult extra terrible twist at the end - that is the kind of manipulation I am talking about. Reading it did make me interested in reading about real school shootings and the backgrounds and psychological conditions of the kids who committed these crimes. School was a terrible stress socially as I recall and I'm glad I'm not a kid still in school. Even though I wasn't bullied like our Peter in this book I still found school pretty awful, except for the studying part which I liked. It is a question isn't it? How to make school a good place for kids to be.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed to Val-Pete, next in this bookray

Thanks for this book! I have one up before this one, so will get it out ASAP.

This was my first Jodi Picoult book, although I have several other books by her on my TBR shelf.

While I found the story interesting, I thought it long and rather soap opera-ish, stretching my credulity, especially when Alex is pregnant at the end after a busy life with her career. Somehow, the Alex character didn't ring true to me - I thought her too shallow for a judge. I might be tempted to read another by this author, although she wouldn't be my first preference on a "to read" list.

I had read another book on this exact subject, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver, which I enjoyed much more.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

It's off the next BCer on this Ray. Enjoy!

Received with no issue. Will dive in quickly so this can resume its journey. Thanks for the ray!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Releasing to skizeye9, as part of ongoing Bookray.

Received this bookray book! Have another Picoult bookray book in front of it right now that I'm reading but will get on to this one next! Looking forward to it!

Wow. This was my 2nd Picoult. The 1st was The Pact. Both, I found took me awhile to read b/c they are such serious and hard topics, I have to take breaks. However, I found this one to be much better than the first. It was much more compelling to me and read easier. I kind of saw the ending coming.

But this book definitely made me think and gave me more perspective on bullying and school shootings. It made me think more about these issues, from more angles, than I had to this point. I think in the past I just had my emotions and didn't examine them. Books like these are good because they make you take a step back from your emotions somewhat, and really think about these things, that sometimes you'd maybe rather not.

I'm really, really glad I read this book; and I thank the other members of the ray waiting for me to finish this book for their patience. I hope that you all are as glad you read this book as I am.

I will try to get this book off in the early part of next week.

I sent auntmissy a PM for her address 11 days ago on Mar 19 but haven't heard back from her at all. I'll send her another today and if I don't hear back by end of week I guess I'll reach out to the next person in line on Monday.

auntmissy got back and touch with me and said she was surprised to get this because she read this book last year in a ring or ray. Anyhow--she said it was fine to skip her--so I'll try the next person on the list now!

It's been six days since I first PM'd GinnyRazo, so I sent a follow-up PM today. Hopefully they'll get back to me soon or I'll move on to the next person on the list.

It's been 2 weeks and 2 PMs and no word from GinnyRazo. I just sent her a third now. If I don't hear back soon I'll move along to the next person on the list... again!

Alright it's been 20 days and three attempted contacts with no response to GinnyRazo. I'm going to skip her and move on to the next person.

So... apparently Accountkel doesn't exist. I've searched the name. I reached out to the person hosting this bookray to see if they had another name, and they never replied. I am having the worst trouble moving this book along. I'll until Tuesday for anyone to reply with if they know who this person is so I can ping them for an address. If not I'm moving on to the next person on the bookring list, Tostle. Geez!

I reached out to tostle on June 2 and didn't hear anything. Tried again today.

This is the fourth person after me on the list who has either not existed, not responded or asked to skip.

The next person is in Germany and I'm in USA and don't ship int'l. Really getting stalled here despite my best efforts.

This book has been a pain in the place where the sun don't shine. I'm about to try the person in Germany just to get this thing off my hands.

The sad thing is it's a really, really good book!!!

On its way to acountkel!

Also--tostle said she would like to be skipped as she's already received this book.

Caught today!
I've been waiting a very long time for this. Heard it was a good one!
I will get to this as soon as I can!
Thank you for including me :)

This is the 3rd book I have read by Picoult. This author is very brave to take on such controversial and emotional issues like suicide, date rape and school shootings. I think she has a talent for this type of writing. She grabbed me from the beginning of this book and I could not put it down. The plot is riveting but her books are also character driven. I found myself pivoting between the various characters I was drawn to. Nineteen Minutes is about a school shooting. There are so many aspects to the plot besides just the shooting. You see all the lives that are impacted by the shooting. The victims, the victims parents, friends and family, as well as, the shooter and his family, the lawyers, the judge and the police force. Picoult doesn’t miss a thing. Plus, she adds a little twist at the end that made this story even more interesting. This is not a happy book, but it made me want to keep reading until I finished. I was definitely moved at the end and I sat down with my son and had a conversation about bullying.

I will PM the next person in line and get this back on it's way.
Thank you for including me in the ray.

Update....
The next 2 readers (Tostle and Soleille) have asked to be skipped.
Waiting to hear from Katacs

Arrived today safely.

10.23. PMed Elina (who is next) twice in the last two weeks, no answer yet...