Predictable.

I just finished a book I was given for Christmas. Jodi Picoult wrote a book called Nineteen Minutes. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book. However, it made me realize how predictable our society has become. Everyone is trying to throw off the voyeur, to create the most controversial plot twist they can think of. And in the end, all it's done is made it that much easier to guess the ending. You always guess the ending that's always been in your head, but has always been too controversial to say out loud.

This book in particular, while relatively well-written, falls distinctly into this category. It tackles the entirely too taboo topic of school shootings, and why they happen. It speaks down on bullying, condemns the popular crowd and it's pull in "society", and all the while interjects meaningless comparisons to make the author sound like a better writer than she really is. An ironic point about fitting in, I believe.

I guessed the ending about halfway through the book. The "bad guy", the one that shoots up the school, killing ten people and injuring nine others, used to be best friends with the girl I will call the protagonist. She's the girl that used to be best friends with the shooter, but left him behind to become a popular girl... a girl that she hates. Now... if you're planning on reading the book, don't read any further. I guess I could warn you with a spoiler alert, or whatever they call it. She hates herself, and hates the way she has to stay with her popular boyfriend just because she's afraid that without him, she'll be nothing. Her boyfriend gets killed. He's one of the ten. She's found next to him, on the floor, with a concussion, and nothing more.

The entire novel tried to blame the bullies, blame the parents, blame the loner kids that the shooter hung out with. And yet you discover that the girl had a chance to stop the shooter, she ends up with a gun. And yet, she shoots her boyfriend in the stomach. She realizes that she hates who she has become. She hates that she has forgotten herself in the pursuit of becoming who she thinks she is supposed to be.

This is all to say, that any semi-educated person that reads this novel, and can read into the protagonist's persona, can easily figure out what's going on. Why has it become the norm to be controversial? There's not a single movie, book, anything out there that claims to have a major twist that can't be guessed be anyone with a GED. Is no one inventive anymore? What happened to trying to entertain your audience rather than just choose the road that is obviously the one that would offend the most people?

I think I'm going to write a novel... and not put a single twist in it. That would freak the shit out of people.