I need to talk about We Need To Talk About Kevin!

[fullofturkeymoonfiend]

I have just finished this, having only read it for my rl book group. Didn't fancy it at all - but could not put it down, really compelling and dying to hear what anyone else thought of it!

Welcome to my club! I think the woman (author) needs therapy, not a book deal. Characters: too extreme to be even remotely realistic enough for the reader to care much above a jot for them.

Just finished another doozie: Beyond Black, by Hilary Mantel. Just made me want to heave.

I've been striking out here. Thought Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was a yawner.

Let's hope The Constant Gardener is good. Just started it last night.

Jonathan Strange - got to about p40 and gave up - why all the fuss about it? Thought it was BORING.
Likewise The Line of Beauty (didn't it win the booker) - again gave up at about page 40....
Now Middlesex - liked that....
About to start Beyond Black so I'll see what I think expat..

Oh pants expat - Jonathan Strange is next on our list! I think the premise sounds promising (not much into sci-fi, but love history nd not adverse to a bit of magic) but having bought it in readiness, and read a page to 'taste' it, not sure if it's my thing. Have to say I loved We Need to Talk.. but I really wasn't expecting to. I know what you mean about the author needing therpay tho - one of the reasons I really did not want to read it was I had read a couple of interviews with her sounding off about about the horrors of having kids etc and thought'I cannot relate or agree with this crap'. But I thought the book was extremely well crafted, though disturbing and I can't wait for a nature vs nuture 'debate' with the other members of my group - we are all mothers by the way.

Beyond Black truly made me want to hurl, Blackduck. As a mum, you'll see why. Hope you fare better than I do.

Jonathan Strange, however, was great for getting me off to sleep when my insomnia cropped up again .

oh goodie...can't wait

Especially if you're the mum of a little girl like I am.

Made me want to cuddle my precious wee daughter who is so sweet-natured.

Just read this in our bookgroup too(RL)fantastic and had most of us in tears at the end esp mothers of boys

I have mixed feelings about this book.. I have just given it to a friend of mine to read and then I can see what she thinks of it too!

it left me feeling rather odd... IYKWIM? I know a mother is supposed to stand by her son no matter what... but a son that did so much (I won't say what incase someone else is planning on reading it )

So do you think it would have mde any difference to Kevin if his mother had not been so antipathic from day one? Are some kids just born that way? And altho expat said she felt the characters were too extreme too have any empathy with, I disagree. I have actually met a child who makes my flesh crawl (Ok, I'm not saying they'd do a Columbine) but even as toddler she was freakish, cold, uncomfortably different and very antisocial. And to my eyes, the mum seemed to be doing 'everything' by the book. And I have also met people like Kevin's dad, who have a reasonable explanation for every negative comment.
I will be recommending it to others, I think.

I was blubbering at the end. As a mother, the premise that such a monster could have been born (if you believe the narrator's perspective) was very disturbing. It is easy to write off the book as too extreme to be believable on the grounds that the author Lionel Shriver does not have any children herself eg how can a mother ascribe such level of manipulation and evil to a baby. But that is the whole point of the book - you have to challenge the narrator's perspective. She is not necessarily telling it like it is.

agree with Blueshoes - I liked the way the book twisted and turned in perspective - sometimes you see the mother behaving in a completely unreasonable way, other times you see Kevin as undoubtedly bad.

Thing is, ALL the characters seemed to black and white/extreme IMO, not just Kevin. The mum, the dad, even the wee sister.

It wasn't about Kevin, it was about Lionel and all her twisted problems.

I found it boring as all hell as a result. Unimaginative.

I have almost finished this...but I have guessed what the 'twist' is.
It took me gaes to get into it, because i found the 'Dear Franklin' style too contrived (though once I had guessed the 'twist' that mmade more sense)...all that expositon that would not be in a ltter, no reply...I also found all the main characters unlikeable, her, the dad, Kevin, Celia.

Also, Kevin is so extreme - I don't mean people like him do not exist - that I am sure he would have been picked up by some sort of psych ed service - esp in the v expensive middle class American schools he attends. I don't think the tracks are covered well enough by the dual act he does with his parents or the disguise he does at school, or that the mother didn't ask some kind of outside opinion, despite the dad's reluctance.

Some brilliant bits of prose, but some over-sensationalised structure - cliffhangers etc.

And how is a book about how people sometimes don't get on with Motherhood? Most mothers don't have Kevins!

The nurture / nature debate is a possible goer - except that she takes care to describe Kevin as an aloof, 'difficult' baby right from the start - and it would be a kooky book if we were expected to base K's behaviour on her thoughts during pregnancy.

I think she fell pray t her instincts to write a horror thriller rather than a character based book about mothers!

The Fifth Child - MUCH better, IMO.

what's that about Expat?Give us a taster!

Blushoes - I tried readong it from the perspective that it is not as Eva sees things, but as Frankliln, or maybe Kevin does - but there are facts - what he says about the bike accident - that set certain markers.

Also, a lot of Evas narrative IS quite self-critical, and consciously cringeworthy - when she admits to her 'rants' etc.

It's probably what 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' should have been were it any good. Family has four, pretty normal kids. Then they have a fifth, Ben, and he's . . . well, very, very different.

It did provoke a really interesting discussion about what your child would have to do to make you really disown him/her and how deep a mothers love really does run

It did provoke a really interesting discussion about what your child would have to do to make you really disown him/her and how deep a mothers love really does run

Blu, I take your point - it is difficult to challenge the facts. And Eva's letters are so considered and intelligent.

I was also struck by the one-dimensionality of the characters. Throughout almost all of the book, Eva's premise is that she tried her best but ... it is nature that created her son. But what was jarring to me was to find out at the end the true extent of what Kevin had done on that day and when Kevin finally lets his guard down during the prison visit (ok - trying hard not to give away the story).

To me, Kevin's moment of glory was the ultimate cry for attention from his mother. A mother who got off to a bad start with her prickly infant son and then maybe, just maybe, that sowed the seeds for a lifetime of distaste, reinforced in later years by the son's pride and difficult-to-love character, and displaced by Eva's preoccupation with Celia. Eva has no actual proof of many of her son's misdeeds (the eczema girl, daughter's accident in the bathroom etc). Is it really possible for her husband to take such an opposite view of Kevin. Is it reasonable for Eva to read into a baby's refusal to suckle, difficulty with settling in mum's arms, late toilet training, calculated torment by a child of its own mother? Perhaps the reality lies between Eva's and her husband's stance. The "trick" is that the book is written from Eva's "Dear Franklin" (as you described it ) standpoint - perhaps we are only reading Eva's reality as distorted by her perceptions, not necessarily the "facts". Then again, there is a good chance I have read too much into Lionel's work .

Kevin is a harsh book. Will most definitely get the Fifth Child.

I still have a tiny bit left to go, so I can't say much, of course!

I do remember sitting with a friend struggling deparately with b/f, and wailing 'he's rejecting me, he just doesn't want me', and I wonder about the painful be truthful posts i sometimes see on MN about mothers who fel that they have not bonded as well with one child as with the others, or who fel guilty about favouritism that they can't control. I do think there's a book in there, and I think Lionel mixed two up.

I'm anticipating an emoyional denoument bewteen K and E, so wull have to wait and see, but it has struck me that the only time E got a positive response out of Kevin was when she lost it over the toilet training, and that the reason he 'covered up' for her was that he knew he had pushed her too far, was actually rying out for someone to stand up to him and give him boundaries, and that by being 'paranoid' about his motives and assuming the worst (because of the pattern she was in with him) she missed a big chance.

From my posts you'd think I was non-literate - sorry - hopeless at typing!

I've only just read Kevin and I thought it was brilliant- couldn't put it down even though I guessed the end (but not the horror) before it happened. I find it odd that a lot of MNetters feel it's too over the top (there are several other old threads) and unbelievable, and I wonder if it's people with little children who see it that way?

I did spend the whole book shouting at her "for god's sake woman- leave", especially once she had Celia as well, because I don't think I would have put up with the opposition from Franklin, but then she says she loved him... people do funny things when they are in love.

Saw it advertised on page turners but haven't got round to reading it yet- i'm sure it'd make me cry.

am only half-way through

can't help feeling so far that it would have been a far rounder book if the author had the experience of raising a child .. a lot of it rings false (but maybe that's just my personal experience)