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gogogo31's review against another edition
3.0
**-1/2, more likely.
I would never have heard of Lionel Shriver if this book of hers hadn't been made into a movie by filmmaker Lynne Ramsay (a markedly more sophisticated, observant, and adventurous artist than Shriver, as it turns out; the film avoids the muddledness of the book, and is much more an artistic whole); I was drawn to it exclusively by my appreciation of the film. Reading it was...an adventure, and not one I entirely regret.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, the book, reminded me of nothing so much as Nora Ephron's HEARTBURN, and I mean that as a compliment (post Beltway/Manhattan oligarch-class journalist phase, pre-sickly sentimentality, that compact, concentrated capsule of hilarious, unfettered post-divorce bile is possibly the only thing Ephron ever did that I think much of at all -- it's utterly unsentimental and anti-romantic, and laugh-out-loud funny). Like Ephron, Lionel Shriver is a commentator/pundit/insider-observer of (upper) social moods and manners who's chosen at times to ply that odd (if widespread) contemporary specialty in the even odder guise of fiction. And like Ephron, she is possessed of a thin, brittle "liberal" shell through which one can easily discern a roiling sea of paranoid-defensive, hyper-individualistic devil's-advocate libertarianism, along with intermittent, alarming signifiers of a flat-out reflexive reactionary.
Precisely as goes for HEARTBURN, the best thing about WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is, far and away, the frank, past-the-wringer bitchiness of its first-person narrator -- a would-be liberated career woman who married an opposite she was attracted to and bore his genetically nihilistic son, who'd go on to fame as a creative mass-murderer of high-school classmates. Shriver's clearly part-autobiographical Eva is, like Ephron's pure-autobiographical heroine, Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE -- admirably worldly, inured by many hard bites, redeeming her cold bitterness by using it to extract truly funny, bull's-eye accurate, deadpan observations out of the kind of foibles, delusions, chaos and reversals that catch the lesser and the innocents unawares.
Where KEVIN is the lesser achievement to HEARTBURN is in its rollercoaster of focus and quality: Ephron's screed is brutally concise, short, to the point, no illusions. KEVIN meanders; its author has a lot to say, as a self-styled very informed and nuanced pundit, and it's far too much for the novel, which feels bloated, overlong, and forced. (The inner monologue is usually delicious, dark; but the dialogue is most often glaringly ludicrous. Not one conversation between Eva and her husband reads like anything but exactly a debate conducted by competing columnists on the NYT or WaPo op-ed pages. Why bother with the charade of making her a travel-book entrepreneur and him a location scout, Lionel, when it's dead obvious that they're pundits!) The shoddy, undigested, evidently un-self-conscious narrative construct and "character" artifice that's always accidentally showing through Shriver's loose seams; the soap-opera-like breathlessness and simpleminded on-off/black-white symmetries of plot and character, also -- and to much less impressive effect -- resemble Bette Davis and her exquisite bitchiness, in that when they get waylaid or must spin their wheels, when they have no focus or target, they become mere camp.
So, I grinned and nodded and laughed out loud through much of this novel. I rolled my eyes plenty, too, and even sighed in exasperation a few times. The ultimate question Shriver poses is not the one with which she believes she's confronting us with her prickly, erudite, ultimately shallow op-ed skills. No, KEVIN's question is more this: Even if it's at least partly an achievement to concoct such a novel -- a genuinely funny, jaundiced, effectively satirical glimpse at certain social conventions and all-too-human ambivalences -- using a highly timely and topical life-and-death "issue" as its launching pad, isn't the immediate creation of camp out of a current and ongoing ripped-from-the-headlines deadly crisis a glib kind of accomplishment, a dubious sort of distinction?
I would never have heard of Lionel Shriver if this book of hers hadn't been made into a movie by filmmaker Lynne Ramsay (a markedly more sophisticated, observant, and adventurous artist than Shriver, as it turns out; the film avoids the muddledness of the book, and is much more an artistic whole); I was drawn to it exclusively by my appreciation of the film. Reading it was...an adventure, and not one I entirely regret.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, the book, reminded me of nothing so much as Nora Ephron's HEARTBURN, and I mean that as a compliment (post Beltway/Manhattan oligarch-class journalist phase, pre-sickly sentimentality, that compact, concentrated capsule of hilarious, unfettered post-divorce bile is possibly the only thing Ephron ever did that I think much of at all -- it's utterly unsentimental and anti-romantic, and laugh-out-loud funny). Like Ephron, Lionel Shriver is a commentator/pundit/insider-observer of (upper) social moods and manners who's chosen at times to ply that odd (if widespread) contemporary specialty in the even odder guise of fiction. And like Ephron, she is possessed of a thin, brittle "liberal" shell through which one can easily discern a roiling sea of paranoid-defensive, hyper-individualistic devil's-advocate libertarianism, along with intermittent, alarming signifiers of a flat-out reflexive reactionary.
Precisely as goes for HEARTBURN, the best thing about WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is, far and away, the frank, past-the-wringer bitchiness of its first-person narrator -- a would-be liberated career woman who married an opposite she was attracted to and bore his genetically nihilistic son, who'd go on to fame as a creative mass-murderer of high-school classmates. Shriver's clearly part-autobiographical Eva is, like Ephron's pure-autobiographical heroine, Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE -- admirably worldly, inured by many hard bites, redeeming her cold bitterness by using it to extract truly funny, bull's-eye accurate, deadpan observations out of the kind of foibles, delusions, chaos and reversals that catch the lesser and the innocents unawares.
Where KEVIN is the lesser achievement to HEARTBURN is in its rollercoaster of focus and quality: Ephron's screed is brutally concise, short, to the point, no illusions. KEVIN meanders; its author has a lot to say, as a self-styled very informed and nuanced pundit, and it's far too much for the novel, which feels bloated, overlong, and forced. (The inner monologue is usually delicious, dark; but the dialogue is most often glaringly ludicrous. Not one conversation between Eva and her husband reads like anything but exactly a debate conducted by competing columnists on the NYT or WaPo op-ed pages. Why bother with the charade of making her a travel-book entrepreneur and him a location scout, Lionel, when it's dead obvious that they're pundits!) The shoddy, undigested, evidently un-self-conscious narrative construct and "character" artifice that's always accidentally showing through Shriver's loose seams; the soap-opera-like breathlessness and simpleminded on-off/black-white symmetries of plot and character, also -- and to much less impressive effect -- resemble Bette Davis and her exquisite bitchiness, in that when they get waylaid or must spin their wheels, when they have no focus or target, they become mere camp.
So, I grinned and nodded and laughed out loud through much of this novel. I rolled my eyes plenty, too, and even sighed in exasperation a few times. The ultimate question Shriver poses is not the one with which she believes she's confronting us with her prickly, erudite, ultimately shallow op-ed skills. No, KEVIN's question is more this: Even if it's at least partly an achievement to concoct such a novel -- a genuinely funny, jaundiced, effectively satirical glimpse at certain social conventions and all-too-human ambivalences -- using a highly timely and topical life-and-death "issue" as its launching pad, isn't the immediate creation of camp out of a current and ongoing ripped-from-the-headlines deadly crisis a glib kind of accomplishment, a dubious sort of distinction?
knitting_cowgirl's review against another edition
1.0
I gave this book a low rating. Not because it is a badly written book, nor were the characters lackluster or underdeveloped. They were. As far as a book goes this was a good read. It kept me engaged from start to finish. I began to feel sorry for Eva. Nobody "got it." Nobody saw the monster waiting in the closet. And like a bad horror flick you find yourself unable to look away as the music moves from sad and wistful to panicked and you really want to scream, No! Don't go through that door, but inevitably they always do. And then they meet their fate. This was a hard book to read. It was not a fun book. It was not an entertaining book. It was not a book that left you full of any positive emotion whatsoever. Actually I am quite depressed now. Few books have made me have such a physical emotional reaction. I feel drained, as if all the light of the world has left me for the moment. I think I am going to go turn on some Disney and color now.....
shaylross's review against another edition
4.0
Quite impressing. It's a book that will be hard to forget.
cwk's review against another edition
4.0
It took me quite sometime to get into this book. I'm not sure if it was the grim subject matter or the tremendous amount of details written in each letter. After the halfway point, I was much more engaged and was able to read more at a time. This is not a feel good book but I'm glad I read it. There are many heart wrenching parts from both a parent and child perspective.
robinretz78's review against another edition
3.0
I am still reeling from finishing this book. The first 100 or so pages were brutal. If this hadn't been a book club book I may have stopped reading. It wasnt brutal from the content as none of the 'incidents' had occurred but rather the writers style of writing or rather over-writing everything! I found it so boring it took my 5 days just to read the first 100 pages without falling asleep.
Once Kevin was born and we see many of the things he was capable of, it broke my heart as a parent. What would you do when your offspring is the spawn of satan? In the end was it better to still have a relationship with Kevin? Or no family at all? So much to discuss nature vs nurture. Are you born evil?
Once Kevin was born and we see many of the things he was capable of, it broke my heart as a parent. What would you do when your offspring is the spawn of satan? In the end was it better to still have a relationship with Kevin? Or no family at all? So much to discuss nature vs nurture. Are you born evil?
alysongilson's review against another edition
2.0
I could not get into this book at all. I saw the movie and really wanted to read the book. Once I started reading it, I was so bored.
impatientgodot's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
judithslays's review against another edition
4.0
I struggled at first with the narrator's wildly self-centred voice, but as the story progressed (and she actually got around to talking about Kevin) I couldn't put it down. It's a brilliant study of two very well-written characters.
lyndamr's review against another edition
4.0
Wow. This classic chicken and egg quandary is set is a nature vs. nurture setting, as mom Eva and dad Franklin take opposite sides of their son Kevin. Eva's perception is that from the very beginning Kevin has been, if not evil, than always angry and hostile. Frankin prefers to see Kevin as a good boy around whom bad things happen, but certainly he's not at fault. As things devolve, we read the history of Kevin through Eva's letters to Franklin as they struggle with their entrenched positions and then the addition of a daughter when Kevin is 8. As we are told the story through only Eva's voice, you can't help but wonder how much is self-serving and how much is bald fact. Certainly, the story is every parent's nightmare and one has to wonder at what point they refused to acknowledge that this was beyond their control, that perhaps they needed help and when Franklin, near the end told Eva that she needed professional help because she was so cold and unfeeling, I just wanted to smack him. Because they could never talk rationally about Kevin, they doomed themselves to their fates.
libby_libaryon's review against another edition
4.0
I really like how the author structured the story, leaving a lot to be revealed very slowly. I liked the deeply flawed characters and the question of nature vs. nurture that is woven through the story.