A week ago I was able to grab a copy of Jody Picoult’s latest book “Nineteen Minutes.” Being a person who believes in the simple rule of “an eye for an eye,” I was quite astound to discover myself sympathizing with a teenager who killed 9 of his schoolmates and his Math teacher in his school in a small town in New Hampshire.

If you watch the video, you would know the entire plot and the conflict of the story. But what bothered me most is the lengths that a person can go through once he has had “enough.”

The most disturbing thing about it is that school shootings do happen in real life –several times for the past years and blood-curdling as it may seem, I won’t be surprised if another incident of shooting gets reported soon. Just like Peter from the story, most of these real life incidents were triggered by a constant bullying and discrimination coming from other students– something that most school administrations and parents never really take too seriously. People are very busy dissing and hating the shooter, they never realize that this kind of tragedy will never stop unless people will start paying attention and start becoming more humane to every person around them. So before picking on someone, be sure that that person doesn’t know anything about explosives or guns, you wouldn’t know what he can do if things get really really bad for him.

Lizard
by Dennis Covington

Have you ever felt like a freak?

Well, then you’ll relate to Lucius Sims. Because he resembles a reptile, people call him Lizard, and they treat him like an alien because he’s different. He’s even put into a school for retarded boys even though there is no proof that he has a learning problem.

Hang on tight, though, because Lizard is about to embark on a madcap adventure. On the road to freedom he might even find a way to accept himself! Covington won the Delacorte Prize for this sensitive novel about the oddball inside of us all.

To read more on what readers say about the novel, please click here.
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Geeks
How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho
by Jon Katz

Geeks is the story of how Jesse and Eric — and others like them — used technology to try and change their lives and alter their destiny. They rode the Internet out of Idaho to Chicago, a city they had never set foot in, seeking the American Dream, a better life.

Geeks describes this brave and difficult journey, as two self-described social misfits use the resources of the Internet to try to construct a new future for themselves, escape the boundaries of their dead-end lives, and find a community they could belong to.

Geeks explores a growing subculture about which many of us know little, a world with its own language, traditions, and taboos. In telling the stories of Jesse, Eric, and others like them, Geeks is a story about the very human face of technology.

To read the full book review, please visit this link.
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