We need to talk about Kevin

[Cosmogirl]

Just finished reading this book - amazing! It has taken me a shamefully long time to finish it but the ending just sent shivers down my spine - so unexpected.
Has anyone else read this? What were your thoughts?

can someone tell me roughly what it is about?

Its about a very intelligent career minded woman who has a baby, spectularly fails to bond with him and has a miserable relationship with him. The ending is amazing....

I loved this book...couldn't put it down

So glad I wasn't the only one who didn't see the end coming

I also loved the book, but I understood Kevin in a completely different way than some posters.

I think Kevin was quite clearly born a sociopath. Remember the scenes when the childminder left ... very chilling.

I can't say that I once blamed the mother. It's funny how we all see things differently.

It's the whole "nature v nurture" debate. She wasn't the greatest of mothers in the early days and didn't bond well with Kevin as a baby, but she wasn't a complete disaster either. Kevin grew up in a wealthy home with married parents and a very doting involved father, yet he was weird from the word go, not potty trained until 6, banished by all friends etc and then just became pure evil as he entered puberty. You know from the outset of the book that it has a "Columbine" type ending but there are some really disturbing sidelines and a horrific ending.
They had a really nice life pre children and were quite undecided about starting a family and you just wished their life could have taken a different course.
I think LS is quite anti children generally from what I have picked up in interviews.

Desi I agree.

His father also infuriated me in that he couldn't/wouldn't see Kevin for what he really was.

The w*nking in view of his mother really shocked me-and I agree with Desi,he really was unlikeable as a child in my eyes.

I think the book is so powerful because many simply don't allow the notion that people can be born evil: that bad children do not exist, just bad parents.

It's convenient for parents to believe this when their children turn out well, and deeply inconvenient when they don't.

We shall never know the answer, I suspect, but books like this are stimulating way beyond the blood and gore.

I think there must be something wrong with me as I massively hated this book - not for the story, which I just didn't care about, but because I thought it was artlessly written. Loads of expositional passages, which I found clumsy and repetitive. But its won awards and loads of people love it so I must just be completely out of step.

I too listened to it on Womans Hour but missed the last blimmin episode!

Can someone please please please tell me the twist at the end, I'm unlikely to be reading the book (limited to catching up on sleep in spare time ) and would love to know

poodlepusher I'm glad to see your message.

I was disappointed by the book at first. I do have to say I wasn't a bit surprised by the ending - right from the start the language in the letters is so clever-clever ambiguous - like someone talking about their partner without using a gender-specific pronoun, they have to be doing it deliberately - so that was the first tiresomeness.

Another was exactly that clever-clever writing - she could never do a simple sentence, it always had to have a Revelatory Paradox in it, or an original, ever so piquant adjective. Show-off. I love a good, justifiable show-off (David Mitchell) but not one with nothing to say.

And on that "nothing to say" - I was a lot more than disappointed with the pointlessness of the whole idea. Why adolescents might do terrible things is very worth investigating - but what's worth investigating is the real story behind real events, not using them as a springboard for a showy detective story where the plot turns on the ambiguity of "I got something in my eye and Kevin helped me get it out". It's just someone's fantasy of what the backstory might be, and despite all the "thought-provoking" accolades it tells you precisely nothing.

I must have missed the point of this book. I detested it, thought it was so badly written, absolutely clunked along in places. Had no subtlety in writting a dislikable character. The authors prejudices were so obvious and the ending was also obvious from about half way through. The little sister was introduced simply so the mother could make points about her eldest child.

Was glad to get it finished.

Sorry folks.

I found it difficult to get into at first, rather over-written. The ending seemed obvious especially once Celia was born. But it got more and more gripping.

I think Eva was a dreadful mother although you can't make yourself love a child. I'm not sure what she could have done differently but she rejacted him from the start which has to have an effect on a baby. She and Kevin were very alike and I wondered whether Kevin killed his father and Celia then the school-kids in some bizarre way to impress his mother and also to ensure that they would end up together.

A very thought-provoking book, despite being not very well written with some rather unbelievable/bland characters (the husband and Celia particularly) IMHO.

I've always thought that in the hands of a talented writer such as Zoe Heller, this would have been an outstanding book.