When Will it Stop?

 My book, Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult, is about a boy, Peter, who is socially harassed; slammed into lockers, his head flushed down the toilet, his books trashed, and called fag and homo. Finally, one day, he brings a gun to school and starts shooting. He kills or harms over 30 people in 19 minutes. In those 19 minutes, he irreverently changed the lives of everyone who was linked each of his victims. Throughout the book, you struggle with feeling sorry for him being the victim of horrible physical and mental abuse, and being angered by his actions, asking how someone could do such a terrible thing. You cannot believe the pain he suffers every day he sets foot in the high school building, and how little the teachers are doing about it. Each character in the story is reveled throughout the story in small flash backs until all the layers are peeled away and you see how everything took place. From Peter’s first day at kindergarten, to the day he attempted to kill those 30 something people.

Each character is connected in some way to Peter, and each character has their own unique complex emotions. Peter’s father, who uses math in an attempt to figure out formulas for happiness; his mother, who tries to help everyone and has forgotten to help herself; his friend Josie, who joined the popular crowd and now seems to hate him; Josie’s boyfriend, who loves Josie so much, he hits her; and Peter himself, who shot over 30 people in just 19 minutes but is not sorry for it. When he was arrested, the first words Peter spoke were “they started it.” This is something kindergartners say when put in time out. But as you read on, you start to realize, they did start it. The whole school made his life a living hell (sorry about the curse word). Josie’s boyfriend, Matt, beat him up daily, once until he was nearly unconscious. Peter then looked up opened his mouth, closed it, and then called Matt a really bad name. Peter got a broken nose and gravel embedded all up his arms. When Josie, asks why Matt hit him so hard, he says “did you hear what that *bad word I am not going to write* called me?” aside from the fact that Matt calls Peter multiple horrible names each day, Matt started the initial fight because “if there was no them (the losers) there would be no us (the popular kids).” So Matt is automatically justified in beating the pulp out of a bunch of other kids for absolutely no reason, just so he can maintain his status in high school. Well now. Maybe they did start it.

Another problem you begin the see, as more and more of the story is reveled, is how the teachers expectations of Peter fail to meet what they expected. And though many of them witness Peter being locked into a locker, they do almost nothing. One gym teacher just didn't like the look of Peter. “He was one of those smarmy guys who rubbed Dusty the wrong way. Probably could barely field a ball, but smirked when you tried to teach him how, as if he already knew he’d be making twice as much money as Dusty one day.” So because Peter gave Dusty a bad first impression, he was stuffed into a locker and his books torn, but Dust only made a halfhearted call to the principle. Most teachers did not make any attempts to talk to Peter, even though he obviously was getting bullied, to the point of bringing a gun to school.

This book has many layers and depths of each person; I could probably write a blog post on each person in the story. The most obvious message of the story would be not bully and if you see something, say something. But I honestly do not think that, even though the school holds assemblies, even though there are posters all around, it does not really matter, people are just cruel sometimes, and they won’t pay attention no matter what you say. This book is effective in how it shows the real life consequences of you actions. I really hope that people will start to tune down the level of bullying they inflict. But do I ever think it will come to a total stop? No I don’t. But please just think before you call someone a name or talk behind their backs, or shove them into lockers. Because when you become the victim, it really hurts.