Bullying-- source #3/ #1 entry for independent reading book

For this semester, I chose to read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. This book had such a powerful influence on me and one of the primary reasons I decided to research bullying was in order to incorporate some of the same themes into my marketplace of ideas project. The novel is about the aftermath of a school shooting that took place at Sterling High School. The beginning of the novel starts with the shooting that occurs and takes the reader through the series of events leading up to the shooting, the shooting itself, and the trial. At a first glance, one may look at the shooter of the massacre and assume the absolute worst. Yet as the novel unfolds, it becomes clear that the shooter, Peter Houghton was a victim of himself, of bullying. The bullying started on the first day of kindergarten when he got on the bus. Instantly, he was tripped as he walked down the aisle and his new Superman lunch box throne onto the highway. This bullying continued up to the shooting when he suffered public humiliation after his romantic interest in a classmate, Josie Cormier was revealed. Because Peter is bullied, he tries to escape this reality by turning his aggression into video games. He in fact, creates a game in which he can shoot people in a school. Peter lives such a difficult life as his once friend, Josie no longer stands up for him. He is constantly suffering and reasons that he committed such a terrible deed because the people caused him to be the way he became. Furthermore, a psychologist reasons that Peter was suffering from PTSD due to the bullying that constantly took place. During the shooting, the doctor testified that he was going in an out of a dissociative state, which prevented him from thinking logically. Nevertheless, Peter is convicted of eight counts of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder and is sentenced to life in prison. There is no doubt in my mind that bullying drove Peter to commit such a deviant act.