We Need to Talk About Kevin

"woefully bleak"

"We Need to Talk About Kevin brings out all the feelings - so I have very mixed feelings on this book.<br/><br/>I understand why WNTTAK is important. Sometimes women who don't particularly want children have them anyway, and this book is one of the worst-case scenarios of what could happen. If you're thinking about having kids, knowing that this book is a possibility is a good thing to think about. I do not want children at all, so this book just encouraged me to continue with my current life plan (#notamom). <br/><br/>The suspense and dread build nicely at some points. However, the good parts are broken up with Eva's pretentious stream-of-consciousness storytelling, and 400 pages was entirely too long for this. Young Kevin is basically Baby Voldemort/Tom Riddle, and does a lot of disturbing stuff. There are a lot of interesting things in this book, but it's just tough to get to those parts. An unnecessary amount of the book is devoted to complaining about Americans and the people around her - I think we got the point fairly early on, and it was difficult to get through pages and pages of this after we understood how she felt. Shriver is skilled at writing ennui - it permeates this book. <br/><br/>I read this book with a friend, and we guessed the ending about halfway through the book. I feel like it could have been a huge reveal, but so many things in the book were "off", and I thought it was way too obvious. I know Shriver isn't a suspense writer, but I wish it would have been covered up a little bit more. <br/><br/>If this makes sense, this book is 5⭐ in theory - the concept is amazing. However the execution was a 2-3⭐ for me. Shriver's writing is gorgeous, but too much of a good thing was overwhelming and not fun in the end. I think this book would have been a lot more impactful for me if it was about half the size. I give this book 3.5⭐."

"A great book…heartbreaking to the very last page"

"A disturbing, keep you up at night read. I read We Need to Talk About Kevin several years ago and it has stuck with me ever since. I don’t know that I will ever read it again, it is intense, and some books just stay with you forever after the first time. "

"The writing in this book was absolutely amazing. I am incredibly impressed with the authors detailed descriptions, comparison, anaylsis, and explanations of even the most mundane and seemingly meaningless events. The story was interesting and complex and a very unique perspective. Everything built up nicely to the end which was pretty unpredictable. I was a bit overwhelmed by the density of this book and it certainly took a lot of effort to get through, not because it was bad or slow, but just because it was a lot to take in, especially with the depth of the writing. I hesitate to say I enjoyed the book just because who enjoys a book that's this heavy in its content, but it really was a very good book. Definitely one I'd love to discuss more, but not one I'd casually or lightly recommend. <br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Content: a good amount of f-bombs, sex, crude descriptions, and detailed violence"

"Holy ****. This book was dark and disturbing and somehow kind of funny? Amazing read. "

"Not sure what I’d thought the book would entail. It documented in letters to her husband about how she never wanted children and maybe that’s why her son became a school shooter and murder his father and sister. In the end she decided she loved him and had a room for him when he was released from jail. Very long book to get to that."

"This book is awful.<br/><br/>The subject matter is awful. The reading experience itself was so awful that multiple times I had to put the book down in horror to take deep breaths or to stop myself from being physically sick or to stop the headache blossoming behind my eyes. Multiple times I had to talk myself into picking it back up. Sometimes I had to stop just to think or because it was too emotionally overwhelming. Now that I am finally done, I still feel awful.<br/><br/>And that is why I rated it 5 stars. <br/><br/>This is no easy read folks. I am a clinical psychologist, and it is basically reading a trauma narrative, presented in the form of letters from a mother to her ex husband, starting at the beginning and ending with her teenaged son being incarcerated for mass murder committed at his school.<br/><br/>There are references to other mass shootings throughout the book, which made it especially difficult for me. I am the same age as the teenage perpetrator, from this generation, and the 1997 shooting at Heath High School in Paducah KY, happened the next town over from me, where I had friends and marching band rivals. I attended their 2001 prom where the victims and shooter would have been seniors, like me. So it is still a traumatic subject for me and the others in my area. People in my town speak with more horror about "Heath" than they do about 9/11, because we really did not believe it would ever happen in small town KY.<br/><br/>This book is awfully realistic. It takes its time. It gets worse as it goes on. But it is powerful. It arouses strong emotions and thoughts in a way I am not sure any other book ever has. I definitely do not remember a book where I have had to stop to *breathe* before! That is good writing. But be warned, it is awful.<br/><br/>"

"Expect a full review in the morning (aka in a fee hours). It's way too late right now.<br/><br/>UPDATE:<br/><br/>Alright, let's talk about Kevin (see what I did there?).<br/><br/>I wanted to give this book 5 stars, yep, you bet. I didn't, though. Why? Let's see.<br/><br/><b>The characters</b><br/>A lot of people don't like this book because you can't <i>love</i> the main characters. Kevin is a psycho, and downright creepy. Eva is condescending and lacks maternal love. Franklin is a gullible fool. And Celia, she's actually the one character you frequently feel sorry for. So, a bunch of flawed characters that come together and we learn about. That's exactly why I loved them so much. I'm a mother and I didn't feel outraged about Eva not ever wanting kids or not loving her kid once he came around. Kevin was a terrible baby, a scary toddler, conniving child and a calculating teenager. I hated him with every page and I hated Franklin for not believing Eva's accusations. But I loved hating the characters. I loved hating Kevin. I loved hating Eva's manner of speech. It doesn't happen often that you hate characters but devour the book.<br/><br/><b>The subject matter</b><br/>Contrary to what you may think, this book is not gory. It deals with a dark and disturbing subject, related to a psychopath (or was he a sociopath?) and yet it's haunting and scary in the perfect way. There are no deep descriptions of the creepy things Kevin does, there's just speculation and that makes it all the more scary. I used to watch horror movies, gory, bloody, guts spilling, blood pouring, those kinds of movies. They were never <i>scary</i> per se. They were gross. They were frightening because of things jumping at you. There are better kinds of scary movies, a scene from <i>The Woman in Black</i> comes to mind. There's a rocking chair rocking back and forth with that creaking sound and all of a sudden it stops in mid shot. Nothing jumps at you. Nothing <i>happens</i>. But that's what makes it frightening. And that's the best way I can describe <i>Kevin</i>. Everything he does, says and alludes to is creepy because it's different in that sense. Even the way he knows his <i>colleagues</i> so well and the way he criticizes some (the Columbine shooters) and praises others (the Hawaii Xerox shooter) is terrifying.<br/><br/><b>The twist and the ending</b><br/>I suspected the twist early on. But the way it was revealed was indeed surprising. I can't say much because of spoilers, but man. That scene has stayed with me.<br/><br/>The ending is also appropriate. It's believable. It's a hard situation to be in. I don't know what I would do in Eva's position, but coming from her character, it makes sense that she would, in the end, achieve that kind of acceptance.<br/><br/><b>The downside</b><br/>So, if I'm raving so much about this book and how brilliant everything was, why didn't I give it 5 stars? The writing. For the first hundred pages it was hard to push myself to read this book. Getting used to Eva's speech takes a bit of time. It really does sound like the author got a Thesaurus or used the Synonym feature on her writing tool. It's a chore to get through Eva's thoughts, even though in the end it makes sense because it's part of her personality. I told myself that because the book had good reviews I would give myself 100 pages to love it or toss it. I ended up loving it. <br/><br/>One thing that has bugged me is that the whole thing was supposed to have happened on a Thursday (April 8, 1999) and the end scene is the two-year anniversary (April 8, 2001), yet Eva says that it's a Monday. But it's NOT! It's supposed to be a Sunday! That was done in the movie as well (I saw the last scene). It seems to me that error should have been caught by someone. I'm a sucker for exactness.<br/><br/><b>The bottom line</B><br/>The story is creepy. It leaves you with a heavy feeling in your heart, but it stays with you and those are the best kinds of books. I recommend it, albeit it has cursing, one specially disturbing scene in the bathroom, and the terrible judging of a drama teacher. So read at your own discretion."

"This story was so compelling and captivating but equally as sad we follow a mother who tells the story of life before her son committed a terrible crime and what it means to be a mother to child that was deeply disturbed and blaming her self for said disturbed behavior the story was very much hard to read but equally unforgettable 5 out of 5 stars would definitely recommend check triggers"