Gifted to me, I didn’t have high expectations of this book. I’ve seen the author well marketed in the likes of Borders, but to me she has always appeared to have an air of Danielle Steel or some such; the mass-author. So it was with obligation that I delved into Nineteen Minutes.
With character names such as Drew and Courtney it was hard to ignore that the story was based in America. The style of prose is quite simple and readable – the length of paragraphs was relatively short and so the pace was quite brisk – although I found it easy to put down. Nineteen Minutes starts in the current time and then switches to different times in subsequent chapters i.e. that is the second chapter reverts to seventeen years prior. This style works for this story in that as the book progresses we learn more as the plot unravels. It’s almost as though time is the alternate character and given the name of the book in Nineteen Minutes I found this to be a nice duplicity.
I found the book a little predictable, some of the characters a little sketchy and some of the scenarios not quite believable. Having said all that, I can’t say that I hated this book although I won’t be in a rush to pick up another Jodi Picoult but if one comes my way I’ll probably give it a go.
Posted by yappingdog 