Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely haunting even when you see the plot twists coming
Review: Wow. Others have already described what this book is about, so I won't waste more time & space doing so. Suffice it to say that this book is extremely well-written; Lionel Shriver has an immense vocabulary and a skilled way of using it. Although the essential plot of the book -- boy kills fellow high school students -- is stated from the get-go, the book is still suspenseful because you keep reading to find out why. Whether that is ever answered is something for each reader to find out. I will say that I disagree with the reviewer who stated that this book makes it clear that it is the parents' fault that their son turned murderous. On the contrary, that is never made clear at all. There is no doubt something was "wrong" with Kevin from the very start, perhaps something so wrong that it could not have been made right. Lastly, many reviewers have spoken of a shocking plot twist. Surely I am not the only reader who saw this coming a mile ahead? But what is truly amazing about the power of the book is that this foreknowledge did not dilute the horror of the moment one iota. I cried when this book ended. It is a shattering read in many respects that will stay in my memory. I will definitely look for more of Ms. Shriver's work.
Rating: 
Summary: The Simmering Pot
Review: Is it the fault of parents when a child's rage spins out of control and murder is committed? Of course it is, and Lionel Shriver's tightly written, intensely personal novel makes that clear. Eva Khatchadourian is far too absorbed with her own life and her own painful childhood to be an effective parent to a clearly difficult baby, her son Kevin. Eva's husband, Franklin, is also too absorbed, but with an idealistic vision of what family life should look like; he stubbornly clings to a soft-focus view, even as the behaviour of his son shows clear signs of disturbance. Neither parent is willing to do the hard job of parenting - they simply wish things were better, but without too much pain on their own part. The novel is incredibly frustrating in this aspect; these parents seem baffled by the terrible behaviour of their son, yet instead of discipling him, they strive to be his friend which only earns them more scorn and derision. Instead of putting aside their own stubbornness and pride in order to seek professional help, Eva and Franklin continue to stumble around, overlooking or dismissing or simply saying nothing about Kevin's escalating deviancy. Long before the accident with their daughter,Celia,this boy should have been taken firmly in hand by responsible adults. By the time of the fatal shootings (described with unrelenting horror), Kevin had come to understand that his parents had completely abdicated any authority over him even as he continually raised the bar in order to force their hand, culminating in the most horrifying crime their is. Once Kevin is tried and imprisoned, Eva visits him regularly though she still looks to him to take the lead in the relationship. Through their conversations, she thinks she is gaining an understanding of what went wrong, and begins to contemplate a life with him when he is released from prison. But Eva - though she readily brandishes self-blame like a martyr's whip - is still unwilling to accept responsibilty, even though her son is the cause of her daughter's torture and Eva's ultimate nightmarish loss. Responsibility implies action, and action is one thing Eva Khatchadourian steadfastly refuses to engage. She still thinks that Kevin is a boy to be won over (hence the incredibly inappropriate book she puts on the shelf for when he gets out of prison), instead of a damaged human being in need of enormous professional guidance. This is a haunting novel, and well worth reading in this day and age, and although Shriver wants us to believe that she only poses the question of parental accountability for children who go terribly wrong, don't be fooled - the question is answered in capital letters. GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY.
Rating:
Summary: What a story!
Review: This is such a timely topic--a troubled adolescent who committs a school shooting--that you think the story would be predictable, but it is anything but. Shriver gives us the parents side of events in the form of letters from a wife to her husband. The reader is given all of the facts early in the story--yet the book has unexpected and mesmerizing plot turns. Really makes you think about the relationship between parents and their children, and our ability to delude ourselves. Great read!
Rating:
Summary: Savage imagination, penetrating insight
Review: I cadged an advance reader's copy of this novel and read it in two sittings. It's terrific--a tour de force that constitutes, to my knowledge, the first full literary treatment of the American teenage mass-murder phenomenon that culminated in the Columbine massacre in 1999. Shriver's effort will be difficult to surpass. As with a Columbo mystery, the reader is made aware of the central violent act from the outset. The intrigue, drive and substance of the novel reside in the how and why. The plot unfolds in a series of letters from the culprit's mother, Eva Khatchadourian, to her estranged husband Franklin, yet the book has none of the shortcomings--remoteness, dearth of dialogue and characters, lack of "granularity"--that tend to afflict epistolary novels. The letter format simply allows the narrator to focus her agonized reflections about what she may have done wrong as a parent directly onto her main accomplice in child-rearing. That question does not admit of a clean answer, and Shriver does not indulge in writing a ruminating novel-of-ideas on the artificially stark nature/nurture question. This book is about particular people rather than archetypes, and the way their irreducible peculiarities--Eva's sardonic remove from both family and country, Franklin's infuriating guilelessness, Kevin's willful intelligence and perhaps an inborn kernel of evil--combine with a society that is alternately too pitiless and too forgiving to produce a terrible outcome that is hell to predict. The excellence of the novel derives from the author's refusal to burden the reader with vacuous homilies or "lessons," from her illumination of the possibility of reason in apparent randomness, and from her pervasive conviction that even the horrid has the virtue of poignancy. Kevin is a dark and unsettling fellow, and We Need to Talk About Kevin is a dark and unsettling book. Yet it rewards the reader with one of the most hard-earned--and soberly redemptive--endings I've yet encountered in fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Appalling
Review: This book made me sick -- it's not for anyone who reads books for redeeming qualities or characters.
Rating:
Summary: You must read this book.
Review: I've worked in the book industry my whole life and have read a lot of books. This is truly one of the best. In fact, I've never written one of these reviews before but was so enthralled by this story that I couldn't help myself. Lionel Shriver tells a riveting, sensitive, shocking story that you will not be able to put down. And when you reach the end and you have to put it down, I guarantee you'll be crying like a baby. This book is for everyone. Read it soon and pass it on--I guarantee you'll need someone else to read it so you can talk about it.
Rating:
Summary: Terrifying and brilliant
Review: This is one of the most chilling and compulsively readable books I've opened in a long time. As you read Eva Khatchadourian's letters to her estranged husband you think 'this is what it must be like' for parents whose child has just murdered classmates and a popular teacher. As Eva reveals in her letters, she knew something was wrong with Kevin from the moment of his birth when he turned away from her breast snarling and screaming. The anger does not wane, even though outwardly he was a passive, disinterested child. She blames her own mixed feelings toward him, but her beloved husband Franklin fiercely defends the boy whenever she asks why babysitters never come back for a second time and other families go great lengths to keep Kevin away from their own children. And Eva doesn't like him. No matter how hard she tries--and she does try very hard, moving to the suburbs, staying home, none of which she wants to do'she does not like her son. Since you know from the beginning that Kevin is in juvenile prison for killing his classmates, you might think that the suspense in the story will come from finding out how he planned his spree and carried it out. You would be very, very mistaken. Very late in 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' Lionel Shriver introduces a twist that is completely unexpected and totally shocking. These are words too frequently used in describing thrillers which rarely deliver the unexpected or the shocking. Believe me, in this book, those words do not begin to describe the wallop Shriver packs in the last quarter of the novel. I was unfamiliar with Lionel Shriver, and will (after a recovery period) look for her other novels. She digs fearlessly into the back of her characters' minds and the bottoms of their hearts. Read this book.
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Summary: WOW!! Great Character Study
Review: I was so blown away by this novel, the minute I finished reading it, I turned to page one to read it again. Eva Khatchadourian is without a doubt the deepest, most three-dimensional character I have ever read. There were many times when I did not agree with what she did, or even particularly like her, but Eva seemed too real to be fictional. The novel is a series of letters written by Eva to her husband Franklin, and they are so brutally honest they may as well be written in blood. I felt like an eavesdropper at Eva's therapy sessions as she recounted the chronology of her marriage to Franklin, then their decision to have a child when Eva is 37 (before time runs out). Eva agonizes over every doubt, every misgiving, every bit of selfishness and negative feelings about being a mother from conception until the present day. With good reason. In the present day, Kevin is in prison for murder, another school shooter. Lionel Shriver creates a compelling, thought-provoking novel which shows that we need not sympathize only with the victims of random violence. This would be a great book for a book club (but the lenghty introspection is definitely not for everyone). I talked about it for hours to whoever would listen, welcoming debates about nature versus nurture, capital punishment, etc.
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Summary: If I ever thought I wanted kids, I definitely don't now
Review: This novel was painful to read, yet I couldn't rip my eyes off its pages. Great story, but I wondered why Shriver needed to bog down the book by using words one would only encounter on the SAT's - became obnoxious at times. This book definitely makes you think twice about having or wanting kids!!
Rating:
Summary: Stunning and luminous
Review: School shootings were *the* topic of the 90s as teen after teen comitted homicide, killing classmates and teachers. A national debate raged: nature v. nurture? what was the role of parents? just how were these kids getting all these freakin guns anyway? whose fault was it?
These questions have fallen by the wayside since this country has become consumed with terrorism and war, but they are still relevent. Great minds have spoken about school shootings, but it is Shriver's book that speaks best about them.
This book will swallow you whole. It will take your idea of the "typical" school shooter and his family and turn it on its head. You will be shocked and you will be angry.
The narrator of the story is Eva, mom to school shooter Kevin. Her writing style--letters to her estranged husband, Franklin-works beautifully for this narration: it becomes clear that Franklin always stood behind and defended Kevin while Eva was nervous about his behavior, from infancy on through school and various suspicious incidents. Eva explains herself to Franklin, but she does so guiltily.
The book has a whopper of an ending. We know from the beginning that Kevin is in jail for the murders; eventually, in a heartbreaking and devestating play-by-play we learn how the murders were done, and later another shock, this one truly dreadful, awaits us.
I cried during this book, and the memory of it makes me cry still. It has stuck with me in a way that few books do. Too often to focus is on solely the victims and their families, and Shriver has shined a light into a world so dark that most would fear to go. This is a stunning potrayal and one that should be read.
Eva is not the only one who needs to talk about Kevin.
We all do.
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