One of the best and most horrible books I´ve read. Fantastic ( )

I thought that We Need to Talk About Kevin was a really great read. The book had a lot to say, and at the same time it was just genuinely interesting to read. I thought that it spoke really well to a lot of issues about family, and violence, but I wish that it could have delved even more deeply into the psychology of the situations portrayed. ( )

The events and characters described in this book seem implausible and grotesque. It is hard to believe anyone could ever be so awful as this mother and son are depicted, as spineless and oblivious as the father, or as compliant as the daughter. I cannot say I liked the book, and nevertheless I still give it a passing thought every now and then - the characters were drawn so well, you can't help regretting the choices they made - if only these few things had gone differently...A study in unnecessary tragedy. And yet, I'd read another Lionel Shriver book. It was tragic and a little horrible. But it was never boring. ( )

Excellent, disturbing book. Did the mother make Kevin a killer or was Kevin born a killer. The ending, however was weak. ( )

I actually tive this 4 stars but don't want it showing up on my 4-star list. It is a very dark novel about a REALLY dysfunctional father/son/mother told through the mothers letters. THe son turns into a killer with a crossbow, even killing dad and sister. Mother tries to figure why. The question is what is her role in this... ( )

Dark, depressing and deeply disturbing - but you can't get it out of your head. The book is filled with themes that resonant profoundly and uncomfortably with any mother. The book explores the themes of motherhood and the maternal/child bond not from the idea of what fullfilment, joy and happiness these bring to us, but rather from what these relationships take from us, what levels they sink us to and what compromises we make for them. Well written, fast paced and fascinating, well-developed characters make this a great read! ( )

Turgid and deeply dull. Just could not get into this book at all and didn't get past twenty pages. ( )

Wow, what an amazing novel! Lionel Shriver is such a sharp writer. Her vocabulary (e.g. anodyne, peripatetics, quotidian) is a delightful challenge for me, and I admit to keeping a "new word" list as I read and periodically checking my favorite online dictionary site. Kevin's mother, Eva writes letters to her estranged husband to get at the 'gist' ('by assembling all the tiny inconclusive anecdotes') of why their son went on a high-school shooting rampage. Shriver presents Eva as an unreliable narrator, and I often questioned her version of Kevin's maliciousness. Surely her husband is right--Kevin couldn't really be that evil. But then, of course, because I do know Kevin is guilty of mass murder, I do accept it all (and more). The real question is not why Kevin is evil, but how could he have been stopped. Perhaps, here the novel is flawed--I wanted to scream at these parents to just DO SOMETHING! Neither parent is wholly sympathetic, but that's what kept me so involved in the discussion. How I love the way Lionel Shriver engaged me and made me think--highly recommended. ( )

Oh dear. So very American in the worst possible way. I think the most distasteful thing I found about this book was the choice of weapon for the school massacre. Is this novel sponsored by the National Rifle Association perhaps? To choose this topic to write on and then to deny that the easy availability of firearms is a major contributor to these tragedies is deceitful.

Otherwise this is an easy-read pot-boiler, a page turner with no great depth or insight. I realise I'm spitting into the wind against the many highly positive reviews here. Fine, but I do find some American novels cloyingly sentimental. DCB Pierre, in Vernon God Little, does this story with so much more style. ( )

This book is astonishing and terrifying - and, though I think it's inherently wrong to use words like "true" and "real" for a work of fiction, I find those keep surfacing when I think about it.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is an epistolary novel. You could say that it examines an age-old troubling question: how responsible are parents for their children's actions? But the examination is too personal to be called that. The book works through, from conception to incarceration, the path of one young man's life, from the viewpoint of a mother who was ambivalent about having him in the first place. From the day after his conception, she is troubled about her son, and catalogues instances of his brilliant cruelty from the day he is born in these letters, until she works up to the terrifying events of one April Thursday that have caused him to be infamous and locked-up. From that standpoint, you could say this mother presents a powerful argument for nature winning out over nurture - she always knew something was wrong with her son, always. Other people noticed, too. But her husband, an unimaginative and whiny American, was determined that everything was Apple Pie and the Fourth of July - and so she stayed. Even as the difference of opinion about their child gnawed their marriage out from the inside; even as she bore another child - desperately wanted this time, who turned out to be loving and sweet and compassionate and therefore in grave danger from her malignant brother - she stays because of her love for this man.

And yet, though she voices the question aloud only once, it's still there. Was he "always" like this because he was always unwanted? Would he have turned out like his sister if he had been loved from the start? Is this all her fault?

My own point of view might be distracted, because the book examines to me the second-most terrifying question involving child-rearing. But Shriver isn't trying to answer this question, not really, as far as I can tell, She's just trying to tell us how it might feel to be the one asking it, for real. It's a dark, difficult, terrifying book - and one of the best I've ever read. ( )

This is one of the best books I have read all year & may be in my top 20 of all time. This is a dense, meaty read full of complex ideas & painful moments leavened by its utter believability & unexpected touches of wry wit & sardonic humor.

Eva, the mother of a school shooter, is writing to her ex-husband about their son. It is apparent from the very beginning of the letters that something was wrong with Kevin, although his father refused to see it. Ms. Shriver dares to write about all the ways that pregnancy is deprivation & physical misery. She explores the equally taboo notion that bearing a child doesn't mean you automatically love said child & the fact that some children are born with various parts of themselves broken.

The relationships & people in this book are believable. The pace is inexorable & grinds the reader into pulp along with the characters. It's form absolutely fits its function & where it could easily have been clunky is instead engrossing & fluid. It is powerful, beautifully written, & utterly intelligent. This is an absolute must-read. ( )

A fascinating read - could not stop even though it made me feel pretty sick at times. June 09 Book Club. ( )

Enthralling, well written, couldn't put it down

http://sarahbbc.wordpress.com/2009/04... ( )

This is my top pick to put in a book group. Though it is disturbing, there is so much to talk about with others. ( )

A strange hybrid of domestic fiction, social commentary and horror story, We Need to Talk about Kevin is about a boy who murders a bunch of his classmates, told from the point of view of his mother Eva.

The novel is structured as a series of letters from Eva to her husband, from whom she is separated. In reviewing her family's life from Kevin's conception to the day of the murders, Eva explores her own possible responsibility for making Kevin the monster he becomes. She was ambivalent about having children and felt no surge of maternal love when Kevin was born. Does Kevin sense this? Does that explain his psychopathy?

Eva's voice is compelling: intelligent, brutally honest, sometimes darkly funny, but also selfish, ambitious and judgmental. I liked Eva and sympathized with her, but I can imagine a lot of readers despising and blaming her. In an interview, the author called Eva an unreliable narrator, and we have to wonder whether her "honest" portrayal of Kevin is colored by her dislike of motherhood.

Dark? Hell yes, but it's hard to put down, especially as the narrative accelerates toward the day of the crimes.

This is my book club's selection for May - what a perfect Mother's Day gift! It should make for a good discussion. ( )

There are some books, like Native Son, that you recognize as good but it is difficult to say that you LIKE because they are so utterly disturbing that your heart aches for them. This is how I feel about this book. I see the goodness, but I can't say I liked this book. In fact, reading it was excruciating. On the other hand, I couldn't look away. I can't say I recommend it because the experience is just unpleasant. But on the other hand, it is fascinating. That is all. ( )

When this book first came out a few years ago and was doing the rounds of the book clubs, I avoided it. But in a station bookshop on Sunday, I bought it. I read it over two evenings, because I wouldn't have been able to stand the creeping sense of foreboding any longer. I think this is what the book does best - something inevitable and unpleasant is approaching - you think you know what it is although you're not exactly sure - and for some reason you can't stop walking towards it. I wasn't quite convinced about one of the main characters who appeared to have absolutely no imagination (why did she marry him?). But it's a great book, although not one to re-read (unusual for me as I'm a devoted re-reader of my favourite fiction). ( )

One of the best books I have read. Has stayed with me long after I read it. Always recommend this one to people. ( )

When I started We Need To Talk About Kevin, I did so with hesitation. Several readers commented how it was depressing, the characters were unlikable and the subject was uncomfortable. Admittedly, that’s exactly how I would summarize this book. I couldn’t wait for it to end. It was like approaching a car accident, rubbernecking to see what happened and then hurriedly speeding up to get past it.

It’s the story of Eva, written as letters to her estranged husband about their son, Kevin, who killed students and teachers at his high school. Eva is self-loathing, egocentric and probably not the best candidate to be a mother. Through Eva’s descriptions, we learn that her husband was overly optimistic, turning the other cheek at Kevin’s flaws. And Kevin is portrayed as angry and troubled. I am not sure if he had a happy moment in the book.

Like any parent, Eva dissected every moment of her child’s life to determine what went wrong. How did she make Kevin into this murderer? She chronicled her hesitancy to have children, her failures to breastfeed and her unattachment to her son. We learned a lot about her mistakes but little about any successes. Perhaps there were none to write about.

(As a side note, this book made me contemplate how our society scrutinizes parents so heavily when their child murders, but if a 25-year-old man committed the same act, the parents rarely come into question. Moreover, parents always scrutinize themselves, no matter the age of our children.)

We Need To Talk About Kevin didn’t move me like it did other readers. I preferred Jodi Picoult’s treatment of this subject in Nineteen Minutes. It was better rounded, giving you an overall view of the players involved in a school shooting. While I didn’t like the story, I did find Lionel Shriver’s writing to be superb and would read another book by her. We Need To Talk About Kevin just wasn’t my cup of tea. ( )

You read this with dread at the foreshadowing horrific climax. Disturbing. Adult fiction.

I read this book over 4 years ago and I still feel a connection to it. If someone asks for a book to suggest, this has been that book since the day I put it down. Main character is someone who could so easily be a person you know or even a person you think you could be or a person you sometimes are to some degree. She wonders whether her son "turned out" the way he did due to nurture or nature. Fascinating and disturbing. Read this! ( )

This is the stunning novel of a woman, married to the love of her life, unsure of her desire or need to bring a child into their union but encouraged by her husband....and how their first born son brought discord into her life from his very first day.

Eva, who writes letters to her husband throughout this book, was never truly "in love" with the idea of having children. She was more or less talked into it by her enthusiastic husband. Once she acquiesced and did become pregnant, she had high hopes for a "complete" family that her husband seemed to want so badly.

Once baby Kevin arrived, from the moment he refused her breast for sustenance, and seemed to turn away from her in disgust....there began the lifelong wedge between Eva and her son. As the boy grows, his psychopathology slowly develops and Eva begins to realize that this child truly seems to hate her, yet seems to bond closely to his father. Kevin acts out in vicious and hurtful ways, causing Eva to implore her husband to recognize these frightening events, and their need for intervention of some sort. Franklin, the father, only sees his son as just going through phases, and that Eva is only exaggerating.

Eva decides to have another baby, mostly out of curiosity, just to see if a second child would also "hate" her. A little girl is born, a complete opposite of Kevin, and very close to Eva, a very needy personality.

As time goes on, things get worse with Kevin....all spiraling toward the climatic event of the book, and it's absolutely horrific ending.

This is a disturbing story, extremely well written and it will draw you in like driving past an auto accident. You don't want to look, but you have to. You will be turning pages and won't want to put this one down. ( )

Challenge to read......the letter style to husband was unusual but appropriate.....liked the way the details were teased out over a period of months.....tragic story......no-one was completely blameless......and ending with a twist is always a pleasant surprise. ( )

I've never read a book that so tapped into the dread and worry of motherhood. Perhaps a little overwrought, but it still left me chilled for days. ( )