A Ramble About Life Present in "Nineteen Minutes"

A lot has changed. But the thing that has changed the most is my perspective. My perspective on what you might ask. My perspective about the world around me. I am taking a censorship course this semester. My final paper is going to be over a book that is highly challenged due to it's content. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, deals with more than just a school shooting.

I am only 241 pages into this book (to be exact) and already I am questioning life around me. I am questioning my motives, how I treat people, and why in the world would people want to censor a book that talks about every single thing bad that can happen in life. Because frankly I would rather have my son experiencing this through a novel then in real life.

I am 241 pages in and already these themes have been covered: school shooting, bullying, young pregnancy, single motherhood, relationship abuse, sex, popularity, drinking and driving, death, ect. I could go on and on. Every horror that you don't want your child to experience first hand is presented in this novel.

To censor this book in schools is to censor life. I am positive that somewhere in this list you can relate to something. I am sure sometime in your life you have been bullied, or you've had someone die, or you've just wanted to fit in. Maybe you haven't found yourself in an abusive relationship or in the middle of a school shooting, but you've been in other bad places. This book brings these bad places together, to help sympathize with the child that's been bullied since his first day at kindergarten.

This book is one that I've cried with, I've laughed with, and I can only read so much of. I don't want to connect with these characters but Picoult does an amazing job of pulling you in. It takes a book like this to be able to sit down and look out the window and fully think about life and death, good and bad, and the future.

My goal in life isn't to just teach English. It's to inspire. I want to become someone that young girls and boys look up to and say "She  became successful, so can I." I want my name to be known not because I care about the money, but I want to change the world. Today when someone says "Oh she's a teenage mother" there are so many bad thoughts that go through someones head. Immediately they thing that you are on state welfare, WIC, and every help you can get from the state. Immediately they look down on you. They think nothing is becoming of your life and you ruined your life. Guess what! That is wrong!

Here I am, 20 years old and 39 days away from graduating with a Bachelor's degree. I have a three year old who I had at the age of 17. I am sure you can do the math, but let me help you. I got through a four year college degree program in three years.

Alex, a character in nineteen minutes, also gets pregnant young and raises her daughter by herself. She also becomes a Judge.

What am I trying to say? Frankly that this book may have pages and pages of horror, but it also has inspiration.

Opening your mind up to books, ideas, and horror can open your life up a new perspective. I hope that the parents that are challenging this book have read it for themselves, because if they have I don't think they would be challenging it. This book brings in all the ugly, and frankly I would rather go through this experience in a novel form than in real life.

Going through a traumatizing even like this in real life does not give a person room to understand the individual or the actions done. I sympathize with the shooter. Yes I said it. I feel bad for him. Why? He' s been bullied since kindergarten, by everyone! Including his older brother. All he wanted was to kill himself, but as he tells the cop "all the other kids got in the way." HOW SAD! This young man felt that the only way to be heard would be to kill himself.

I could ramble off passages that disturb me. But they don't disturb me because of the content they disturb me because nothing is being done to help this young man. One of his teachers even tells him mom that he has to learn to live with the bullying! Are you kidding me?!

Nobody likes to feel like they are nothing but a nuisance. Frankly I hope parents read this book and see that children can be moved by seeing what bullying does to a person. Not every child bullied will turn into a school shooter, but they will still be damaged.

Before challenging this book, look at the positives. Life is not rainbows and butterflies. It sucks! Reading about the horrors is better than experiencing them. I believe that this book can change a teenagers life.