Alexis Elmurr
Professor Smith-Sitton
Editing
19 November 2013
Part I: Analysis:
Nineteen Minutes is an incredible, heart-wrenching tale about a controversial
high school shooting; however, you wouldn’t believe that from the book review
written by Janet Maslin in the New York Times. First of all, Maslin includes eleven
direct quotes from the book, which is way too many. I would query her to pick one
or two of the quotes she finds most important (with suggestions from me as well)
and to only include those in the review. In my opinion, “Everyone would remember
Peter for 19 minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million?” is the only
quote worth mentioning. The quote that goes on about yogurt, “the shiny metallic
helmets of the Yoplait yogurts — strawberry and mixed berry and Key lime and
peach…” is completely random and pulls the reader out of the review. Plus, Maslin
continues to write on about the yogurt, which is such an insignificant detail from the
story that I honestly do not even remember reading. Also, I found some of the word
choices to be distracting; for example, words like “aperçus,” “iconoclasm” and
“schism” are words that the average person is not familiar with. This could cause a
reader to shy away from the book, assuming the book contains harder vocabulary as
well.
Furthermore, Maslin includes the names and little details about nine
different characters in the book when there are only four major characters. A reader
would be overwhelmed with all of this information and could start to get confused
because they aren’t familiar with these characters. If I were copyediting this review,
I would query back to the author about only discussing the four main characters in
the book.
Next, the majority of Maslin’s review is a summary—much like her review on
Gone Girl that is also in The New York Times. The only “review” portion of Maslin’s
piece occurs in the very last two paragraphs. She had a positive opinion of the book
but it is really difficult to tell because of her phrasing. For instance, she wrote,
“When Ms. Picoult puts ordinary life under a microscope, she winds up with life that
is still ordinary. It’s just bigger,” which I am not sure is a positive or negative
statement. In my opinion, Maslin’s review is convoluted and contains too many
insignificant and random details, straying from the main points of the story. For
example, the entire paragraph about a minor character’s love interest is excessive. I
would tell Maslin to focus much more on the shooting and the love story throughout
her review, because the two are barely mentioned despite making up most of the
book’s plot.
From layout and design perspective, I thought the document was just alright.
The paragraphs were a little too long which made the review seem much longer
than it is, which is a negative with readers nowadays. I also believe a picture of the
cover art should have been included because it is mentioned in the review; plus, it’s
a good picture to include with a book review so the readers know what to look for if
they choose to purchase the book. I enjoyed how the price and total page number
were included as a caption because I think that’s information a perspective reader
would want to know.
All in all, the review did not make me want to re-read the book, which
surprised me because this book is one of my all-time favorites. Maslin wrote too
much summary and not enough analysis of the book, which is the purpose of a book
review. I am curious how other people felt about this review and if it made people
want to actually read the book.
Maslin, Janet. “After the Shooting Is Over.” The New York Times. The New York
nnnnnTimes. 16 March 2007. Web. 19 Nov 2013.
Part II: Citation Style Practice
MLA:
Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes. New York: Washington Square Press, 2007. Print.
Chicago:
Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes. New York: Washington Square Press, 2007.
APA:
Picoult, J. (2007). Nineteen minutes. New York, NY: Washington Square Press.
Part III: Précis
Nineteen Minutes (2007) by Jodi Picoult is a thriller/novel that argues how people
and situations are different than they appear. Picoult demonstrates this by unveiling
the surprisingly miserable life of the most popular girl in school, Josie, and how her
life unexpectedly intertwines with the bullied kid, Peter. Picoult wrote about a high
school shooting in order to reach out and touch an audience, forcing people to
realize how valuable each life is and how tragedy can reveal people’s true character.
The intended audience of this book is young to mature adults, mostly females due to
the romance aspect of the plot—Picoult’s books especially appeal to anybody
interested in the justice system because each book involves law and usually a court
case.