Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Plot summary
The story begins on March 6, 2007, tracking the lives of a number of characters, including Alex and Josie Cormier, Lacy and Peter Houghton, Patrick Ducharme, and several victims-to-be. Patrick, the only detective on the Sterling police force, hears on his radio of shots fired at Sterling High School. He changes route to the school and when he arrives, he searches the school to seek out the shooter. After passing dozens of dead and wounded victims, he traps the shooter in the locker room and he is taken away.
Throughout the book, the time switches back and forth between events before and after the shooting. In the past, we learn that Peter and Josie were once the best of friends, but slowly drifted apart as they progressed through school. Peter was the target of severe bullying, which he describes as his motivation for the shooting: "It had to stop."
After the shooting, Peter is sent to jail while the trial proceeds, and is only visited by his parents and Jordan McAfee, his attorney. He waives the probable cause hearing and admits that he did kill ten people (nine students and one teacher) and wound nineteen others, while Jordan’s objective is to convince the jury that Peter’s actions were justified since he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and was in a dissociative state at the time of the shooting.
Eventually, Josie is reluctantly hauled into the case to testify on Peter's behalf – despite earlier signing an affidavit saying she could not recall anything from the time of the shooting – after admitting to Jordan that she did, in fact, remember some of the details. However, upon being brought up to the witness stand, she confesses that although Peter did kill Matt Royston - Josie's abusive boyfriend at the time - she shot him in the stomach first.
Peter is sentenced to life imprisonment, and Josie is sentenced to five years at a women’s penitentiary. Exactly a month after being convicted, Peter suffocates himself in his cell using a sock.
favourite moments: i think i have to give credit to jodi picoult for writing out peter's character so well. this book is worth every single cent i paid.
06:59
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