We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Review by Rachel
When I hear about a film coming out that sounds interesting, I tend to do my best to read the source material first. Sometimes it pays off, The Hunger Games being an example of where it has, Fellowship of the Ring an example of where it hasn't. When I heard about this film starring Tilda Swinton, I thought I'd give the book a go.
After having read books like A Thousand Splendid Suns, I was prepared to find myself invested emotionally. What I wasn't expecting was to have those emotions ripped out, laid bare, made fun of and thrown back in my face.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a series of letters from the mother of a boy who murdered seven people in his high school. A fictitious look at the way a mother has to cope with her son's actions. The letters are to her absent husband and she lets us in to her innermost anxieties. How she struggled desperately to love an unloveable son, a child that rejects her from the moment of birth. Her inability to see the positive in her child. Probably because she's the parent who sees him for what he really is, or is it more that hindsight has given her a negative perspective rather than the rose tint of nostalgia?
We Need to Talk About Kevin is not for the faint hearted reader, it's one of the most emotionally draining books I've ever read but it is a fantastic read. Highly recommended, but only to the brave.
Published
18/08/2011
Publisher
Serpent's Tail
ISBN
9781846688065http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/lionel+shriver/we+need+to+talk+about+kevin/8458049/
When I hear about a film coming out that sounds interesting, I tend to do my best to read the source material first. Sometimes it pays off, The Hunger Games being an example of where it has, Fellowship of the Ring an example of where it hasn't. When I heard about this film starring Tilda Swinton, I thought I'd give the book a go.
After having read books like A Thousand Splendid Suns, I was prepared to find myself invested emotionally. What I wasn't expecting was to have those emotions ripped out, laid bare, made fun of and thrown back in my face.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a series of letters from the mother of a boy who murdered seven people in his high school. A fictitious look at the way a mother has to cope with her son's actions. The letters are to her absent husband and she lets us in to her innermost anxieties. How she struggled desperately to love an unloveable son, a child that rejects her from the moment of birth. Her inability to see the positive in her child. Probably because she's the parent who sees him for what he really is, or is it more that hindsight has given her a negative perspective rather than the rose tint of nostalgia?
We Need to Talk About Kevin is not for the faint hearted reader, it's one of the most emotionally draining books I've ever read but it is a fantastic read. Highly recommended, but only to the brave.
Published
18/08/2011
Publisher
Serpent's Tail
ISBN
9781846688065http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/lionel+shriver/we+need+to+talk+about+kevin/8458049/