Goodreads Book Review - We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Boy, this was one disturbing book. I can't say for sure if I liked it or not; I can say that it was very well-written and the question of "What would I do if I had a child like Kevin?" was better at giving me a sleepless night than any horror movie I've seen in the last eighteen months (which, by the way, considering my current bronchial-infected state, is no mean feat!). The problem with it is that none of the characters, with the exception of poor little Celia, are remotely likeable. The narrator, Eva, is the kind of hoity-toity "I have money and I love travel and fine food so I'm better than everyone else" person I can't stand, and her inability to connect with her unborn child is bracing. The father, Franklin, is an oblivious asshat who refuses to see anything bad in his son while simultaneously refusing to see anything good in his wife. And Kevin... well, he's just Kevin. Explaining would give too much away. I think, though, that when someone writes a book like this, they aren't necessarily looking for readers to think it's good or bad, that we like it or we don't; I think they're looking instead to make us think. And this book definitely does precisely that.



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Just two days since the ninth review, the tenth book in the Recommended Reading Challenge is completed. This one was a bit of a doozy, but being too sick to do much more than lay in bed let me chew right through it. Ten books in and the second book in the challenge, Boy's Life, is still in the lead for favorite and the prize that distinction will win the person who recommended it. Now, the question is, what's next?