BookBrowse Reviews Nineteen Minutes: The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive. Novel

In her latest emotionally charged novel Jodi Picoult delves beneath the surface of small town America to explore the ubiquitous issue of school bullying and the less ubiquitous but increasingly frequent result of such bullying - a school massacre. Peter Houghton has endured 12 years of bullying at the hands of his peers, starting on his first day of kindergarten. His older brother is no support, in fact he's part of the problem; the school effectively does nothing; and Peter stopped trying to confide in his well-meaning but misguided parents after his mother threatened to stop him playing with the only friend he had in kindergarten (Josie Cormier) if he didn't toughen up and stand up to the bullies.

As a result, slightly built and bespectacled Peter withdraws into a world of video games and...