Rating: 
Summary: No one to like
Review: It takes me a while, sometimes, to realize why a book bugs me. I'll already be twenty or thirty pages in, and then it hits me: I don't like the characters.In WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, the narrator is insightful and tries to be honest. But I found her so unlikable and alien and, well, largely despicable. Even among the cast behind Eva--her family--there wasn't a single character I could relate to. I also objected to the construction of the book. It runs the risk of being a stilted form, the novel-in-letters, and it always irks me when you get a line like, "You must remember, dear, we first met Joe Stevens when...." with the author then supplying required information the letter recipient was surely already privy to. This novel was rife with awkward exposition. But I kept reading. And that has to count for something. The subject matter is compelling enough that even without likable characters, and even with passages that made me cringe, I stayed with it until the fairly predictable end.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read
Review: I would highly recommend this book. I could not put it down for two days until I finished it late one night. I closed the cover to the book and was amazed at the emotions it stirred in me. As a mother, I looked deeply in to the meaning of this novel. I have to say, that unlike other reviews here - I think labeling Kevin as a bad seed is missing the point. In interviews with Lionel Shriver it seems that she is more pointing towards the fact that Kevin sensed that his mother was distant from day one. Did she really love him? Should she have ever even been a mother? So many questions that cause you to think deeply while reading this book. I must admit, I hated Eva (the mother) throughout it and kept seeing the damage she was causing her son. To me - she kept seeing the worst in her son, and the consequences were horrifying. It was disturbing, but an incredible read. Purchase this book and you will not regret it. Yes it is dark...but challenge yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Leaves One With More Questions Than Answers
Review: I'm sure the author is glad to hear I finished this book with more questions than answers. She did her job well, telling us this disturbing tale of a woman facing the fact that she has raised a child who is capable of creating such chaos. I believe she must have done a lot of research to have come up with such a chilling character as KK. At first I tried to make myself believe that her own ambivilant feelings were the cause of her son's pathology, but in the end, I realized that just can't be true. Somehow a mother and child collided in midair, then fell to earth to become Eva and Kevin. Which is to say there simply is no reason Kevin became KK. I don't think a different mother would have changed him. The end of the book left me with a glimmer of hope, a twinkle of clarity, maybe. I won't forget this book very soon.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply disturbing, brilliant book
Review: Not exactly a fun read but brilliantly written. The suspense is taut, the characters are realistic and the ending is a shocker.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding portrayal of a mother's ambivalance
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt ambivalent about motherhood. Lionel Shriver really lays bare the conflicts that are inherent in being a mother- all of the things that you give up and all the ways in which it's possible to secretly resent losing one's single life. She brilliantly and honestly peels back middle class suburban beleifs about raising children- exposing them for the false constructs that can entrap women into being less than honest with themselves and their children. After reading this book I vowed to be more honest with my own child and to think more critically about all of the activites I push her into and all the expectations I have of her and myself. I am grateful to Lionel Shriver for writing such a thought provoking and disturbing book. It's one of those books that has subtly altered my views of parenthood. It's also kind of heartbreaking- so read it with some hankies nearby. I read it one long night.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book - UsesToo Many Big Unfamiliar Words
Review: Lionel Shriver's book, We Need to Talk About Kevin would have received 5 stars from me except for one thing. I'm hardly an uneducated person and I do some writing myself, but her 75 dollar words so frequently used wearied me. If I have to leaf through the dictionary every few pages, to find out what she's talking about, it discourages me from reading the book past the first chapters.
However, the subject matter is dear to me as the mother of a son who is nothing like Kevin (and I'm nothing like Eva) but I've lived a life feeling in a sense much as does this fictional mother, for lesser reasons, due to my own son's problems.
There is no answer to the question for mothers - are we to blame. We are all different, one from another and our children, too are all individuals.
The story ends with a shock, as most reviewers have mentioned. It's a story I'm glad that I read if for no other reason than it's always a pleasure to read well written novels on subjects other than sex and immature love.
I usually opt for non-fiction, in fact originally I thought this book might be just that.
My only respectful request is that if Ms. Shriver writes more novels that she tone down the big words that are unfamiliar to many of her readers.
I hate to admit it, but I almost quit reading the novel early on because I found that I was constantly wondering "what on earth does that word mean?". This was annoying and distracting.
I read on, hoping that she'd ease up and come down to the level of ordinary readers who haven't swallowed a dictionary. To some extent I became used to her style but not completely comfortable with it.
The story however was real enough to hold my interest and I fought my way through to the very end. I'm glad that I did.
Rating:
Summary: It will overwhelm you.
Review: This book is intense - depressing - shocking - and I could not stop reading it. It will stay with me a long time. The emotions, the words, were all believable and I was swept up in the life of this mother and her "demonic" child. Fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: A literary Bad Seed
Review: And I don't mean that as a bad thing. This is probably the best book I have read in years. I finished it a week ago and am still thinking about it, especially the final twist. ... Most people do not want to read a book this dark and challenging. I have to say I am not particularly fond of heavy books, but this is a masterpiece. Lionel Shriver deserves to be as well-known as Anita Shreve and I hope she finds that success
Rating:
Summary: Great read, couldn't put it down
Review: At first, I thought this was a work of nonfiction, I was taken in by the reference to several actual school shootings in Eva's letters. I am a mother and was drawn to the story from the moment I read the front flap. I stayed up until 1am reading the book, I couldn't put it down. The last few chapters left me in tears and I found it hard to sleep. I went to give my son a kiss and was thankful for his 3-year-old personality. It has changed my way of looking at motherhood, at the moms of not just the victims, but also the perpetrators.
We shouldn't judge women and label them weird, wrong or inferior just because they don't have that maternal instinct. Maybe we should be grateful that some of them don't cave into society's pressure (and their significant other's) to have a child.
I am glad I wanted to be a mother and after reading this book, I know I will look at the relationship between myself, my son and his father (my husband) a lot different.
Rating:
Summary: nature or nurture
Review: "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is told from the viewpoint of the mother of one of the latest in the growing number of school shooters. While the author succeeds in raising thought-provoking questions on the subject of just what makes a person "snap," there are still problems with this book. First is the mother's attitude towards her son. Kevin appears to suffer from what psychiatrists call anhedonia, an inability to find pleasure in anything. That's it - books, movies, music, etc. with VERY few exceptions. Although the narrator decries this, she also comes to see this deficiency as a kind of superior quality, maybe because it dovetails so nicely with her own cynical outlook on the world. Eva's heritage is Armenian, and the reader is never allowed to forget this for one second. Although the book is set in New York, the narrator does not consider herself even part American, and spends much of the book freely unleashing her anti-American opinions. Americans are too fat, too materialistic, too boorish, etc. And since her son takes no pleasure in "typical" American activities, she decides that he has already mastered the secret of life - i.e. that everything is fundamentally not worth getting excited over. So we have what most people would recognize as a young psychopath and his mother, who does try her best and bears the brunt of this boy's baiting, but who is too blinded by her own prejudices to get him professional help. Although she tells us that she was once a "weirdo" in high school, with the exception of one little girl, her sympathy and compassion for Kevin's victims is nil. Her telling one mom that her child should "suck it up" is chilling. Some would say it's too easy to make your villain/protagonist someone innately incapable of feeling remorse. It's also too easy to deprive your protagonist of any real likes/dislikes. We miss the chance to judge Kevin by these things, as he so cruelly judges everyone around him. What surprises me is that no teachers or professionals ever suggest in this book that Kevin needs therapy. The family is well-to-do, surely they would meet someone like that in the circles they travel in. It's well written, but ultimately the book left me cold.
| 
