Rating: 
Summary: Dark, Dark, Dark
Review: This was one of the darkest books I have ever read. I threw it away upon finishing it. I can't remember if I've ever thrown a book away before - I would never pass it on to someone, recommend it to someone, even sell it second hand to someone. Why would a teenager plan the brutal killing of classmates? This book offers the answer in characters that are so dark, it's unbelieveable. I'm sorry I bought it - as the mother of a 3 and 5 year old, my times to read are precious, fleeting and usually at the cost of sleep. This was a terrible waste of that time. I feel terribly sad that such people might really be walking among us and dread that my family might one day be horribly hurt by them. I wish someone would have clued me in before I started it. I recommend you choose another book.
Rating: 
Summary: Intense drama
Review: Novelist Lionel Shriver brings a personal touch and drama to headline news as he presents the point of view of a parent whose child has killed others in a spate of high school violence in We Need To Talk About Kevin. Eva's son murdered seven of his fellow classmates; Eva probes her own downfalls and involvements as she tells of her son's upbringing through a series of introspective letters. Intense drama.
Rating: 
Summary: Brutal and absorbing
Review: I got so wrapped up in this book, I almost missed my subway stop. It's been a while since I literally could not put a book down. This is NOT a happy story. It's complex and brutally honest and will make you think about the assumptions you make in life.
Rating:
Summary: Book Clubs Take Note
Review: All of the other reviews pretty much tell the story, so I'll be brief. I heard about the book on NPR and had taught at a sister school to Columbine at the time of its tragedy. It was a must read. I thoroughly agree with all of the five star reviews. I've recommended it to everyone. I especially want my book club to read it so that we can discuss it because the subject is so "close to home." It is a fantastic book for book clubs because I'm sure it will create some very animated discussion and controversial views.
Rating:
Summary: I need to find a better book to read...
Review: I generally cannot stand books written as letters. (An exception is Smollet's "Humphrey Clinker".) Worse, I certainly cannot stand books written largely in the second person. So this will soon be a gift for someone I don't like much...
Rating:
Summary: Nature or nurture...
Review: Nature or nurture is the problem Shriver is attempting to answer in her absolutely stunning novel. She really doesn't succeed in answering what is probably an unanswerable question, but her book is must reading. I bought the book after reading an article on it in the NY Observer a couple of weeks ago which described the book as an underground hit among NYC feminists. I am still shaking somewhat as a result of reading this book and I'm not stinting in my recommendations to friends to read this book. For a mother (or father, too) this book should be required reading!
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down ...
Review: A beautifully crafted, well-honed novel using a current topic. Think you've read it before? - well you haven't. This is an amazing novel using the nurture/nature argument for evil. Eve's letters are poignant, painful, honest, and loving. Her look into her family's life is sharp and focused; even when she's questioning. I couldn't put it down and asked a friend to read it so we could talk about it.
Rating:
Summary: Very moving and impressive.
Review: I was quite simply blown away by this novel, and I am not often blown away. First, Shriver's characters are wonderfully realistic, with the exception really of Kevin, they are not all good or all bad. They are, as life is, far too complicated to be all black or all white. The debate about which shade of grey each one of us is, is the heart of this novel. The writing is really wonderful. The descriptions are gripping and bring realistic details to the entire story. As noted above, all of the characters are at once likeable and unlikeable, sypathetic and unsypathetic. It is a difficult stance to take throughout the book, but she maintains it. The plot is terrific, and even when I was sure I knew what would happen, I was still quite shocked at the shocking parts. Its a nice thriller on top of its literary quality. Finally, Shrivers questioning of motherhood, and the unrelenting nightmare of giving birth to a psychopath, are timely and sensative. She speaks the truth, the hard truth, the ugly truth, but this truth is beautiful because it IS the truth.
Rating:
Summary: A stunning novel
Review: Maybe the term "great American novel" is too shopworn and turgid to describe Lionel Shriver's "We Need to Talk About Kevin." Yet by any contemporary standard, Shriver's novel is both great and profoundly American; i.e., it has important and true things to say about the way Americans lead their lives, pursue their careers, struggle with their marriages and, above all, raise their children. Shriver's theme, as other reviews make clear, is the high school massacre of the Pearl-Paducah-Columbine variety. Michael Moore tried to plumb the subject in "Bowling for Columbine": the result was a tendentious, thoroughly manipulative documentary aimed against the usual suspects. Shriver's book, too, easily could have descended into polemic or cliche. Instead, Shriver chooses the teenage murderer's mother Eva as her narrator, and Eva isn't about to scapegoat anyone except possibly herself to account for her son Kevin killing nine of his classmates. How did it happen? How did this child, raised in upper class comfort with doting and educated parents, turn out as he did? Is it Eva's fault? Is it the fault of "society"? Or was Kevin just born bad? Shriver asks the right questions, thinks them through the right way, plots her story smartly, and puts it all together in compulsively readable prose. It's a novel that should be at the top of any intelligent person's summer reading list.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, Disturbing: You Can't Put It Down
Review: I admit that it was with some almost prurient interest I first picked up "We Need To Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver, but such base instincts quickly turned to admiration for her literate prose and the fascinating story she wove. Many of us mothers have been mulling myriad questions about the teens who have participated in school shootings over the past few years and I was interested in a view of that issue. I wanted "why" answers, who doesn't? But of course things aren't that black and white. Shriver draws us into the "perfect storm" of a child who can only be described as a "bad seed", a cold mother and a delusional father. We know from the onset that this hurricane produces no happy ending, in fact the ending is even sadder than we anticipate, although there is a glimmer... I have to pick at one slight nit about the reference to military academies (like West Point and Annapolis) as being for troubled or recalcitrant boys. Nothing is further from the truth. Our military academies take the cream of the crop (both male and female and only 1% of those who apply) to become U.S. military officers. I think the author was actually referring to military schools which are quite another thing.
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