We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (P.S.)
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Product Description
The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry Eva never really wanted to be a mother—and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
Good, but overrated
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Comment:
While I agree that someone needed to talk about Kevin (and TO HIM - oh 15 years earlier or so), I wonder if we really needed to talk about him THIS much. I found myself screaming sometimes in the beginning of this book "NO! We do NOT need to talk about Kevin! Shut up!" The first half of this book could have easily been cut by 75%. It's meandering and I only finished it because I wanted to know the ending. I hated the main characters in this book (except for the daughter). The mother's ambivalence, the father's blindness, the son's - well, everything about him. I wanted to smack that child, deck the mother and castrate the father. The book made me very angry. Can you tell?
Once you get past the first half, things really pick up - esp those last 80 pages or so. The author just spends too much time getting us there. I think part of me knew the "twist" ending, but I didn't want to know it, so I was surprised. I, honestly, am not 100% sure I'd recommend the book, HOWEVER, this would be a really really great book club book. Conversation inducing. I probably won't recommend it to my club because I don't wanna read the blasted thing again.
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Summary:
Grips you. Turns your stomach. Makes you think about what's important in life.
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Comment:
Whew, I haven't quite finished this book and I'm writing the review because I've been discussing it with some friends. Mostly we agree, but I strongly disagree with one usually insightful friend who maintains that the author, Shriver, hates, yes HATES her characters!
This book isn't about hating your characters. It's about a boy who hates himself, was born hating himself, and his mother's effort to cope with that and her own self-knowledge and ultimate responsibility for her actions. Exactly what and how much is she responsible for in the monster she gave birth to and what part in all this does her husband take?
As I said, I'm not yet done with the book and I've come off a previous read that is much, much lighter fare, so this is difficult for me. I've stopped reading it at night, it's so intense.
If you want to try for many laughs, I've recommended a totally different subject--internet dating--in another review. Middle-Age Confidential: My Life as a Date (This Could be a True Story),
If you can take the heavy novel--this is my first Shriver read--I say try this one.
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Summary:
Disturbing, engrossing, so horrible you can't put it down
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Comment:
Although it is quite clear that the author detests her characters; each one faulted with few redeeming qualities. Yet, this book is gripping & unforgettable. The discussions that arise from the storyline will keep you talking for days. The author is a bit long-winded and self-indulgent but she does write brilliantly and eloquently. The characters are sometimes quite contradictory to themselves and often unbelievable but it still made for a chilling read.
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Summary:
You'll like this one if...
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Comment:
You'll like this book, if:
1. It's your first Shriver novel:
I read The Post-Birthday World: A Novel (P.S.) first. Others that read this one first would swear it's better. That's because she's a great writer of prose which makes the first time reader discount other major writing flaws - you don't know are habitual.
2. You like a unique literary gimmick:
In Post-Birthday, it was chapters of alternating realities. In this one, it's a one-view perspective of a woman writing letters to the husband she's separated from (it worked better in the first one - since there's no way the self-described character - would have written w/ this over-the-top writer eloqunce.)
3. You like trying to engage with truly despicable characters.
Through all 3Shriver books I've read (this is my last) Shriver hates her characters. They are horrible, unlikable people. If they tend to have an optimistic bone or a sense of basic decency or common courtesy - she makes them out as moronic dupes or boring idiots.
4. You like a great premise:
Shriver picks hot-buttons from a new perspective to which people might relate . A child gone amok and it's causes (this one), a woman choosing between a dull but loving husband or a roller-coaster ride lover (post-birthday world), a family's competition and realignment based upon the death of a loved one (A Perfectly Good Family: A Novel (P.S.))
5. Your life is so good, you like to be depressed and angry at something outside of yourself:
All of her books, including this one, are beyond depressing and angry-making at those characters she abuses.
6. You want a book to discuss at your book club - that will have great reasons for everyone to both love and to hate it
Everyone wll talk about what they liked about the writing - and what they hated about the characters.
7. You like self-indulgent writers
It's one thing to be a good writer, it's another to take advantage of it by plying us with endless pages of it (something I actually didn't mind as much in the first book I read of hers).
8. You like surprise endings
Although in this case, I saw it coming a mile away - it was the least of the flaws. And in the last 100 pages - even despising all characters - the book actually does come together (a testament again to good writing skills - that have picked a bad formula for delivering them).
BOTTOM LINE FOR THOSE W/ SHORTER ATTENTION SPANS:
If you're a first time reader of Shriver, she writes well with depressing, despicable characters that will get a book club talking - I'd try The Post-Birthday World: A Novel (P.S.) first. If you're looking for a well-written, less author self-indulgent story, but greater, more realistic insight into the plight of kids gone ballistic at high school, I'd choose Nineteen Minutes instead.
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Summary:
It turned out to be a great book.
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Comment:
I read the reviews for this book after I finished reading it. When the people say it doesn't get that interesting until after the first 50 or so pages, I completely agree. I almost put it down but I try not to give up on a book I pay more than a dollar for :P
I'm one of those people that has a short attention span and prefers conversations between people over long descriptions of everything in a book. I was a little worried because this is one of those books where there are a lot of descriptions because they are letters written to her husband. Once I got past the first 50-75 pages, I couldn't put it down. There are plenty of great reviews written about this book that go into detail what the book is about. I just wanted to say that the end was surprisingly shocking and unpredictable (to me anyway) and after I finished the book I kind of just sat there and thought about it. Usually when I put down a book, I can easily find something else to do, or pick up another book and start a new story, but I let this one sink in. It makes you think. Personally, it shocked me.
I do believe it is one you can reread. You will more than likely catch missed details after you've read it through. I do disagree with the people that described this book as horror or thriller. To me, it was a story about a hard life for all involved. Very interesting book. Give it a chance.
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