We need to talk about Kevin - just how bad does it get?

[claudiaschiffer]

Ok so i'm about half way though this book, Celia has just been born and I'm worried that Kevin does something so awful to her, that i'm a bit "eek" about reading on.

Go on, reassure me, surely it can't be as bad as I'm imagining.

I know this all sounds so wussy but I have a really lovely sweet dd whom Celia reminds me of and I really really don't want to read anything horrifying about gruesome Kevin torturing his lovely little sis.

Apart from that I'm LOVING it. It's fab and such an interesting/appalling (in a good way) read. Anyone got any thoughts?

Teadrinker - that's the whole rubbishness of it (I loathed it, by the way (see other threads)) - it does this thing of looking like it might be a true story, so might actually tell you something about what really goes on behind the scenes in these atrocities, what the real triggers are - but it isn't - it's nothing but fiction, self-important, superficial fantasy - and therefore tells you nothing & worse than nothing.

Did I mention I loathed it?

bink - did you like it though?

I didn't rate it that much - almost didn't finish it although stuck with it as the second half was a bit better.

I think part of the reason I didn't rate it is because I guessed the ending. It was a bit obvious to me.

I think if you are worried about the ending - imagine the worst thing that you can and you will probably be right.

Ah Bink! A kindred spirit!
I absolutely LOVED Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which I did feel told me something about the human condition.

You know, i had considered reading this - i don't think i will now...

Thank you ladies

Haven't read all of this, but have read all of "Kevin" and would recommend just chucking it away and reading something more cheerful. Lionel Shriver must be weird to write such depressing literature about horrible people. Anyone who has a 'difficult' little boy should also not go anywhere near it.

LOL at Bink!

I thought it was harrowing until I read Music for Torching by AN Homes - from which I am still in shock.

What bink said. Foul book, psychologically completely implausible, and written by somebody who is clearly projecting her ishoos about kids.

Yuk.

So you'd recommend the AM Homes book, then SSB? Am feeling a little fragile atm, so may give it a miss.

Now, if we're on ugly & harrowing, as we appear to be (watery ), I have just weathered The Passion of New Eve. (Does of course manage to add fearsomely original in style and substance to the mix, which puts it in just slightly a different category to Ms Shriver. However. Shudder. Funnily enough, that made me want to run for Truman Capote too - or Gore Vidal, perhaps more appositely.)

What frogs said. I hated this book. Off now to investigate In Cold Blood.

Oh I loathed that book too, it was monstrously conceited. Ugh

....it is a harrowing read, isn't it?

I took it on holiday last year, it was the last in a large pile of books, but I put it down as too distressing a read at about the point that you have reached!

(To put this in context, earlier light reading for holiday had included Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar". Sailed through that with barely a wistful sigh..)

...but then I picked it back up and finished it. It is worth doing so. Things most horrid do happen, but when you think about the book as a whole (and you will) there is some real humanity and light even in this murk.

I loved In Cold Blood when I read it. After watching Truman Capote though I am not quite sure what to think! Maybe not the straighforward journalistic approach.....

I HATE THIS BOOK

I don't mind the gruesome schlock horror subject - although it seems a bit cheap

But I hate the quality of the writing - just so so bad - unpublishably bad I'd have thought

Oh definitely not straightforward journalism, which is why I compared it to Kevin, really. But none the worse I think for blurring the lines. A very moving book that manages to make you feel for both victims and murderers, without betraying the former.

Well we all know what happened to her second novel - sold 16 copies or something?
She is so full of self-regard
We need not to talk about Lionel

In Cold Blood is excellent
Also like John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I was recommended "Kevin". It was very engrossing and very disturbing. One poster said it was pyschologically impossible or unlikely - maybe I hope that is true because he was one nasty little boy!

Not as nasty as the author

I read this book last year I think it was...yes it does get worse but as already mentioned it worth finishing. I was quite suprised by the ending.

I rarely leave a book unfinished but this one I did. The writing style was pretentious, the characters unappealing and impossible to sympathise or even empathise with (for me). So I decided sod that and picked up a Rankin or some such instead. The plot twists in 'Theres something about Kevin' are so signposted it seems like you have already read them before they happen. Gruesome and unsatisfying.

Not going to bother with anything else she has written either. But that is just my opinion

I read some excerpts from her mad book in which she attempts to write in English working class vernacular, and there are not enough rolling eye emoticons in the world.

Tells us Mum's to blame.

I personally don't think we need to talk about Kevin.

I did read another one of hers - twas an act of desperation due to shortage of unread books on the bookstall - it was rather better written but still bad