Book Review: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Summary:

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a dramatic telling of how a tragedy came to be.

After her 15 year-old-son massacres his fellow classmates at school, Eva Katchadourian is left with only her memories of her son and her internal struggle. Nature versus nurture takes a spotlight in this dark novel.

After years of a very happy marriage, Eva and her husband Franklin, in a slow and almost grueling process, decide to get pregnant with a child. While Franklin bursts with excitement at the joyous prospects of being a father, which would only befit the American Dream he so desires, Eva only feels anxious. Can she be a mother? A mother who can fit perfectly inside her husband's dream?

As soon as Kevin is born, Eva senses something is off about her son. He refuses to be potty-trained, has no favorite toys, games, or books, and is increasingly antagonistic towards his mother. He portrays a perfect son persona toward his father. As he grows, his increasingly sardonic attitude only irritates and frightens Eva more, while Franklin refuses to see anything wrong with his son and his world.

Review:
We Need to Talk About Kevin was recommended to me by a coworker and friend. I had initially seen a trailer for the movie of the same title a few months ago, and I was instantly intrigued. While Tilda Swinton kind of scares me (because she has no eyebrows and looks like Conan O'Brien) and John C. Reilly annoys me more often than not, this movie looked right up my alley.

See? No eyebrows. And only Conan can pull off the Conan look.

I adore suspense, thriller, and horror movies. So imagine my delight when I was told it was a book.

It was kind of like this.

As soon as I got the book I started reading it- and it was slow. Shriver is so wordy. It gets distracting. Why can't the blue chaise lounge just be a chair? Is it really necessary to describe the exact feeling of the wind on that autumn day and every vein in that leaf? I've seen a leaf. Trust me. It felt more like Shriver was trying to impress me with his her huge vocabulary.

Freud would probably have a lot to say about that.

Apparently Shriver is a chick, so there goes my Freud joke.

I was about 80 pages in before I started getting into what I really wanted to know.

After that, I couldn't stop reading. I read majority of the book in three days. The story is simply so engaging, and when you're done, you can't stop thinking about it. For a large part of it, I became afraid of having children.

So don't read this if you want them.

Just kidding....

Not really....

I really disliked the ending, but only because I disagreed with the choices of Eva, not because it ended with huge plot holes or anything. I ended up calling my friend who suggested it and we spent a decent amount of time talking about the book. And I'm hoping she chooses it for book club so I don't have to read another book can talk about it more.

This book really lets you see horrific incidents from the perspective of those usually condemned- the family of the suspects. It also demands that you think of the realities and pressures of motherhood, and nature versus nurture. Are children who they are because of how they were raised, or do they turn out exactly how they were meant to?

Verdict
Read this book. If you love thrillers and suspense, read. This. Book. It may scare you for a bit, but I think that is simply a mark of how good of a writer Shriver is.

I also want to say that if anybody is emotionally reeling from any of the recent attacks in Aurora, Wisconsin, or any other attacks, please do not read this book. It will probably be very painful.