That neither nature nor nurture bears exclusive responsibility for a child’s character is self-evident. But generalizations about genes are likely to provide cold comfort if it’s your own child who just opened fire on his feellow algebra students and whose class photograph—with its unseemly grin—is shown on the evening news coast-to-coast.
If the question of who’s to blame for teenage atrocity … teenage atrocity intrigues news-watching voyeurs, it tortures our narrator, Eva Khatchadourian. Two years before the opening of the novel, her son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and the much-beloved teacher who had tried to befriend him. Because his sixteenth birthday arrived two days after the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is currently in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York.
In relating the story of Kevin’s upbringing, Eva addresses her estranged husband, Frank, through a series of startingly direct letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son became, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general—and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault?
We Need To Talk About Kevin offers no at explanations for why so many white, well-to-do adolescents—whether in Pearl, Paducah, Springfield, or Littleton—have gone nihilistically off the rails while growing up in the most prosperous country in history. Instead, Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story with an explosive, haunting ending. She considers motherhood, marriage, family, career—while framing these horrifying tableaus of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.
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This book is so relevant to our world today that I will probably read it again. It is a horrible story about a family and their psychopath son. When I first read it, I wondered how many real-life families there were out there living this very life. Lionel Shriver is such a compelling writer that the book is impossible to put down.
How To Talk About Narcissism and Hide Behind Your Psychotic Son…
I’m not sure how I feel about this. It started off really great, with our MC writing letters to her dead husband about what her life was like after the tragedy her son was responsible for. She spoke vividly about how the community treated her, even recounting specific incidents in …
Mom writing letters to the dad about their son who was the shooter in a school shooting. Not for the light-hearted.
Such a hard book at first to get into…the author’s literary prose gets kind of old and tends to ramble. I had to look some words up to understand where the author was going. I totally understand the frustration of the mother of Kevin and she certainly had her hands full with a child that’s hard to relate too and the reluctance of her husband to …
There was a lot I disliked about this book – the narrator was quite self-absorbed and not likeable as a person or a mother. The writing was difficult to read with too many obscure words and long winded expositions that lost my interest. For about half the book, I had to force myself to keep reading. BUT the second half of the book pulled me in and …
I really had no idea where this was going. There were parts that were a bit slow, where I was thinking “get going already!” but it was worth it. Highly recommend.
Very emotional and thought provoking!
will stay with you for days. i found it compelling. very dark, very frightening.
A classic of modern literature.
Absolutely chilling! 5 stars! A total page turner with twists, more twists, and a teenager who is the poster child of twisted! A must read!
This was almost difficult to read, but utterly fascinating and incredibly well done. An impressive work of literature that often left me feeling drained. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know, but I’m glad I read it.
This book chilled me. It’s depiction of motherhood and parenting, which I read while pregnant with my own baby, has stuck with me since I read the last page. It’s deeply moving and entirely unsettling, a brilliant original read.
Great use of the narrative voice. A gripping story and the end makes you question all that’s come before. One of those novels where everybody who’s read it asks if you guessed the ending. And, no, is my answer.
My first Shriver read and it was explosive.
One of my all time favorite novels. So well-written. A book that stays with you forever.
This is one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read, and yet so thought-provoking and true. I read it years ago and it’s never left me. The movie didn’t do it justice.
This book was read in my book club several years ago and we still find it memorable. Lionel Shriver has a wonderful vocabulary and tackles subjects that cause the reader to think. I still think of we Need to Talk About Kevin and find it a haunting read.
This book is one of my all time favorites. Lionel shriver is a phenomenal writer!
This is my all-time number 1 book that I always recommend to friends. This book had me riveted from beginning to end. In fact, it’s probably the only book I’ve ever read twice. Great character building, suspenseful, tale about family and their dynamics and how these dynamics did or did not effect lives. There are some cringe-worthy moments, and …
Through letters to her husband, a mother narrates the events leading to the tragic incident at the hands of her son. This is a tragic story of an unfortunate dysfunctional family and psychopathy. It’s detailed, involved, and frighteningly realistic. Not an easy book to read.