Every 15 Minutes Commentary

I just finished reading Every Fifteen Minutes by Lisa Scottoline. In this book, a psychiatrist, Eric, is working with a young boy who suffers from OCD, Max. In addition to having OCD, Max stalks Renée, whom he is in love with. Then, Max’s grandmother dies which was the only thing keeping him mentally stable. When Renée is found dead in a park almost immediately after Max’s grandmother’s death, both Eric and Max are considered murder suspects. Max then threatened to shoot hostages and blow up a bomb at a mall, and Eric saved the situation by stopping him. In the end, it is discovered that Laurie, who was best friends with Eric, had been manipulating her coworker, Sam, who killed Renée, into manipulating Max to do terrible things. In this journal,

The first connection is acting like a person you are not. In the novel, Laurie acts really sincere and kind. She is the absolute last person you would expect to manipulate a person into murdering others. However, due to being a sociopath, she does not feel typical feelings or show any of her thoughts. This hiding can make the sociopath seem like a typical person, but when a person rips off the mask he or she is hiding under, a dangerous side is to be revealed. A time that I had to act like a person that I was not occurred a few summers ago. I was in a wedding and had to shed the sweatpants and sweatshirt for a fancy dress. Also, I had to sit at the head table and act very ladylike. In addition, I had to have as good of manners as a grown adult. I had to pretend to be someone I was not and this was very challenging for me. The whole night I felt like I did not belong in my own skin and was just wishing for it to be the time when I could go back to my old self. Another connection I made while reading my novel is having to move on. Immediately after being cleared of his murder charges and arriving home, Eric starts cleaning up his house. The novel states, “Eric wants to put it all behind him, and there was not time like the present” (Scottoline 406). This quote proves the he knows that if he were to put these things off and do them later, they may never get done and trigger terrible memories of the events that