The Book: We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver

The Story: In letter after letter to her estranged husband, Franklin, Eva recaps their life together from start to finish.  In her first letter, Eva tells the reader how it is going to end: with their son, Kevin, taking part in a school shooting and ending up in jail.

The letters detail the total unraveling of this family, starting with the conception of Kevin.  Eva never really wanted a kid anyway, she just kind of did it to go along with her husband.  From the time Kevin was born, something just didn’t “click.”  He would act out for Eva but be fairly normal for her husband.  By the time he was old enough to walk and talk he had a manipulative, mean streak that Franklin just doesn’t see.  A line is drawn early with Eva on one side and (as he sees it) Franklin and their son on the other.  Through Eva’s eyes, we get to see the crazy, mean little things that Kevin does. A lot of these things, especially one later in the book, are graphic and hard to read.

There are a lot of references to other, real school shootings- comparing what Kevin did to what happened in Columbine and Peducah and all these other schools that have had this horrible tragedy.  Like many of these school shooters, Kevin seemingly had it all.  His family was wealthy, he went to a decent school, he had access to anything that he’d need to succeed.  Also like many of these kids, Kevin was shockingly bright.  A lot of times his parents and teachers didn’t know what to do with him because he was just further along than other kids his age.  Drawing these parallels, along with many others, made this book seem much more real.  I often forgot that it wasn’t based on a real shooting.

As the book goes on, it becomes obvious that the real heart of the story, the question that the author is asking us:  Was Kevin born like this or was Eva and Franlkin’s parenting to blame?

What I Thought: This is one of the hardest books I have ever read.  I don’t mean it’s a tough, slow read that you need a dictionary to figure out.  I mean that the subject matter was so dark and twisty and disturbed that I had a hard time letting my mind go there.

That question that was being asked of readers: who was at fault, or was Kevin just a bad egg? is one that I cannot really answer yet and maybe the reason that it took me so long to sit down and write this review.  I think that Eva screwed up a lot and maybe she should have tried harder to love Kevin, but when she “tried” is when he really pushed away.  And maybe Franklin should have listened all those times that Eva expressed concern instead of just saying she was a bad mom.  And maybe the school officials should have seen all the red-flags that Kevin was throwing.  Or maybe Kevin is fully to blame, maybe there was nothing anyone could have done to stop him.  It’s just this twisty moral issue that isn’t easy to sort out.

The writing in this book, the emotional depth, the creation of complex characters: spot on.  Really good stuff that makes me want to read more of Lionel Shriver’s writing.  When she finally gets around to telling us what actually happened in the school shooting, it is so captivating that I didn’t even hear my phone ring. I was totally engrossed.

Even though this was a truly disturbing, hard book to read and I know that it is one that will stick with me, in the back of my  mind for a long time

Conclusion: I don’t know what to say.  I think that I would recommend this with caution.  I only say that because it really is a tough read.  I would say read a happy book, then read this and have another happy book waiting.