Book 1 Project

Nineteen Minutes Choose Your Own Adventure

            Have you ever read a book and wished desperately that the author had chosen to make the characters choose a different path? Well now you can try for yourself to determine the course of a real book and see if you’re a better author than Jodi Picoult. For the first time there’s a choose your own adventure book that’s based off of a published book. Montgomery and Picoult will be coming together to write out this amazing book, allowing readers to interact with Nineteen Minutes. Nineteen Minutes Choose Your Own Adventure will enable readers to choose each character’s actions despite the authors wish. This will be the first ever opportunity to do so, and will allow you to answer crucial question such as: what would’ve happened if Peter had committed suicide instead of mass murder? Everyone has had those “Why did they character do that? They’re so stupid!” moments and this is the first chance to rectify that. If you love Picoult, realistic fiction, and/or Choose Your Own Adventure this is a must read for you!

            Jodi Picoult asks tough questions in her book and with tough questions come tough decisions. Each of her characters in any given book either take the next step in their life or are forced to take a new look at the world and base their decisions off of their new and often terrible experiences. For example Lacy Houghton, the mother of the shooter, faces difficult problems such as, “Could you hate your son for what he had done, and still love him for who he had been?” (Picoult 248). It becomes apparent later on in the book that she chose to answer that question with a yes. But what if she had decided you couldn’t? Or back in middle school when Josie picked had to pick between the “cool” kids and Peter, her lifelong friend- “’So,’ Matt said, ‘are you coming with me?’… ‘Yes,’ Josie said, and she followed Matt without looking back.” If Josie had chosen Peter though would the shooting still have happened? And perhaps the biggest decision in that whole book is which boy Josie shoots in the locker room. Peter, who had been her best friend until seventh grade, was holding her boyfriend at gunpoint while she pointed the extra gun at Peter. Matt, her boyfriend, tells her: “’What are you waiting for? Shoot.’” However she does what neither boy expected and she shoots Matt. But if she had shot Peter what would’ve happened? It’s those questions that inspire Nineteen Minutes Choose Your Own Adventure.

Publicity

In Nineteen Minutes many big decisions were made, and most of them were far from easy. For readers this is a once in a lifetime chance to interact with a book in a way that puts the reader and not the characters in charge of what happens. The difference between this one and any other choose your own adventure books is that you know, love, or hate the other characters already. It’s not a matter of will I survive? But what you felt was right for these characters. And, as this is the first choose your own adventure book to come out that was based off of another book it will gain a lot of publicity. With this publicity the book’s title will get out and intrigue Picoult fans, teens dealing with bullies, and any avid realistic fiction reader. Many people read Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper after news of the movie got out; this book will act like the movie drawing those same people who read My Sister’s Keeper to read Nineteen Minutes.