printEasily more offensive than the salacious sex scene on page 313 of Jodi Picoult’s novel “Nineteen Minutes” is the rotten writing. The book’s titillating topics—bullying, school shootings, teen sex and pregnancy—verge on the political, their effects on young minds is to stunt and steer the child into thinking along certain narrow, politically pleasing lines.
“‘Relax,’ Matt murmured, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder. He pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers. She could feel his erection, hot against her stomach. ”
… She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, as if her heart were beating between her legs. She clawed at Matt’s back to bring him closer. “‘Yeah,’ he groaned, and he pushed her thighs apart. And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs.
… (H)e clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.“Semen, sticky and hot, pooled on the carpet beneath her.”
Ugly writing.
A dad who resides in New Hampshire, the state whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” was arrested for protesting the tract, which he felt was pornographic and age-inappropriate for his 14-year-old daughter. William Baer had exceeded his allotted, two-minute complaint time, after which he was cuffed and dragged out of the forum of educrats at the Gilford high school.
If only he had supplied the ignoramuses present with a list of classics without which children’s minds are destined to remain as dim as those of the educators who assign them such piss-poor reading material.
UPDATE (5/9): PARENT ARRESTED for daring to protest. The dulcet voice of a female is heard in the background; how she delights in her petty abuse of power over a powerless parent.