Has anyone read "WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN"?

[Jacksmama]

I've just finished it and feel cold with horror. And sad, so sad for the mother. And a bit scared, really. How many other kids like that are there? And could you imagine being their mother? Oh dear...

i read it a while ago and was absolutely hooked, but know other people who slated it , thought it was an interesting take on the nature/nurture argument, are sociopaths born not made etc, the mother figure is slightly indulgent i thought , she doesn't seem to take much responsibility for how her reaction to Kevin as a child may have made him what it he was. though in rl i know plenty of people who have turned out to be very un maternal after the baby they thought they wanted arrives, wish the book had explored that a little more, why did she find it so difficult to bond with him at the beginning and find it easier with the daughter.

I was hooked I stayed up nearly all night to finish it .

Made me very sad and I still think about it a lot now.

yes, it scared the hell out of me. but i rejoiced knowing that i was too young and on great contraception. a few days after reading the book i found out i was pregnant. hah.

i don't know if there are a lot of kids like kevin, the book was mostly fiction. there are some really horrible people out there in the world but i don't think anyone is ever born evil.

I loved the book. I have a (step) DS with attachment disorder (which Lionel Shriver mentioned experts thought was the problem very late in the book) so unfortunatly yes, I can totally imagine...

I read it a while ago too. I thought that it was a dishonest book. The situation it described was heartbreaking, but I didn't feel that this was the psychologically incisive book that it claimed to be.

I thought that whilst the author had grasped something of the awful guilt a mother can feel at not enjoying motherhood, she lacked any real understanding of children. I would be very surprised if Kevin were based on real life children who had gone onto kill. He seemed to me to be more based on Damien from the Omen films. And as for the little sister . . .!

I thought the book worked quite well as a tense 'page turner' - almost a thriller - as you wanted to know what would happen, but I didn't come away feeling that I understood anything more of the causes/motivations of such people.

Enjoyed this but in an aghast way!
Kept telling myself 'it's fiction my boy will not be like this...' !!

haven't tried her other stuff. Is it any good?

yeah, i just assumed kevin was evil when she was talking about her business and traveling and stuff. i wonder if the author has children.

She doesn't have children and if you google her you find that she has some rather strange things to say about them. She's not hugely well informed, in a MN sort of way, about what make them tick.

The author does not have children and does not like children- she happily admits this.

I think it was psychologically inaccurate, poorly executed, contrived and predictable. The characters were unrealistic stereotypes and the writing too forced.

I despised it.

wowooo She wrote a book about a tennis pro. It was awful. I loved Kevin though.

Won't bother then thanks ladyjulia.

The more I think about it not sure 'enjoyed' is the right word to describe reading the book. It was well written and certainly interesting and different!

I couldn't really work out whether the author thought that Kevin was born evil. His mother clearly thought there was something very wrong from early on, but didn't seem to try to get him any help. And his father seemed genuinely to think that he was completely normal. I couldn't reconcile it in my mind.

It did scare me to begin with, though. Any time I caught myself saying anything like, "DS is being a horror today", I felt unpleasantly cold. Completely irrationally, obviously!

A good friend let me borrow this. She thought it was a very good book, her sister hated it and I also couldn't finish it.

Thought it was an amazing read - have read it more than once. First person narratives always problematic in terms of 'truth' though.

Agree tennis book was dire!

That's what I couldn't work out, how could the father think everything was peachy??? Could anyone be that oblivious??

The part that struck me at the beginning was when she talks about visiting him in prison and he says "you needn't bother, I hate you" and she says "well, Kevin, I often hate you too"

I mean, how could she not... in a way, anyway... but

I remember saying that to my mother when I was about thirteen (your typical overwrought teenager) - feel very when I think of it now...

I don't know, I'm feeling very disturbed about this book. There was recently a thread about the young boys who killed Jamie Bulger that asked "what would you do if you found yourself married to one of them". I want to know how their parents feel about them!!

I thought this book was well written and the subject area was very brave. It raised questions and a dialogue about things that are not normally discussed and for this reason I think it was a very notable book. I am very glad I read it although it took me years to steal myself and to feel mentally ready to read it!

Fgs, don't read the one about snooker! It's got "birthday" in the title I think. I enjoyed Kevin, but as a horror, not as realism.

I really enjoyed it and thought it was thought-provoking.

Tennis one -urgh.

The snooker one is called The Post Birthday World - one of the worst books I have ever read - honestly.

I "enjoyed" it - but remember we only hear the mother's internal narrative. No outside corroboration from other characters of any of the action etc. In fact dad can't see anything amiss.

Is that because the mother is psychotic...???

apart from the end....

I loved this book. Thought that she built tension beautifully, and kept just enough information dripping throughout so that my interest held, but I was still utterly shocked by the ending.

I didn't see it as black and white as some of you seemed to. I actually questioned whether he was like he was because she hated him, or if she hated him because he was like he was. Chicken or egg sort of thing, if you see what I mean. The mother character was painted unsympathetically, so it seemed feasible to me that Kevin might have been different had her attitude towards him been more loving. I was waiting for some input from his father, so as to judge exactly how unreliable a narrator the mother (Eva?), so was disappointed as well as shocked when I realised that input was never going to come.

Not a pleasant read, but a very very good one.

definitely not a pleasant read, i kept saying to DH that i felt like the book was like a train wreck... you can't NOT look...

I really disliked this book........ sorry

I read it a few years ago, and ever since, certain bits come back to me when I least expect it.

I can't say I enjoyed reading it, but I couldn't put it down, in the same way I couldn't put down "A Child Called It".

I thought the father in this book ("Kevin") was a complete knob.