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    We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in: A Novel
    We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in: A Novel
    We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in: A Novel
    Audiobook16 hours

    We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in: A Novel

    Written by Lionel Shriver

    Narrated by Coleen Marlo

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    ""Impossible to put down. . . . Who, in the end, needs to talk about Kevin? Maybe we all do.” — Boston Globe

    Acclaimed author Lionel Shriver's gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry

    Shriver’s resonant story of a mother’s unsettling quest to understand her teenage son’s deadly violence, her own ambivalence toward motherhood, and the explosive link between them reverberates with the haunting power of high hopes shattered by dark realities.

    Eva never really wanted to be a mother—and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

    Like Shriver’s charged and incisive later novels, including So Much for That and The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence, family ties, and responsibility.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateDec 27, 2011
    ISBN9780062188076
    We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in: A Novel
    Author

    Lionel Shriver

    Although Lionel Shriver has published many novels, a collection of essays, and a column in the Spectator since 2017, and her journalism has been featured in publications including the Guardian, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, she in no way wishes for the inclusion of this information to imply that she is more “intelligent” or “accomplished” than anyone else. The outdated meritocracy of intellectual achievement has made her a bestselling author multiple times and accorded her awards, including the Orange Prize, but she accepts that all of these accidental accolades are basically meaningless. She lives in Portugal and Brooklyn, New York.

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    Reviews for We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in

    4.5/5

    427 ratings238 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Holy crap, this is good. Highly -- but not lightly -- recommended. This isn't beach reading.
    • 1/5
      Normaal krijgt elk boek dat ik lees een faire kans, zeker 100 bladzijden. Hier hield ik het na 50 pagina's voor bekeken. Normaal hou ik van brievenromans, maar de schrijfstijl van de brieven in dit boek is zo slecht, en klinkt zo ongeloofwaardig en onecht, dat ik het niet volhield. Met mijn excuses aan de vele fans van dit boek.
    • 5/5
      We Need to Talk About Kevin was a five star read for me. I think it was written brilliantly. I've had many a movie have me on the edge of my seat but this is the first book I can recall putting me literally on the edge of my seat and holding my breath even though I had figured it out a few pages in, with the exception of the daughter.I've not been able to write a review on it yet, but will throw one up soon.
    • 5/5
      This was a really thought provoking novel on the whole nature vs nurture debate. It was a little slow to start but it was worth it.
    • 5/5
      Incredible story. One I will not forget. The story was recommended on a list "Books That Will Change your Life". It surely is a book that will stay with me.
    • 5/5

      As soon as I finished this novel I had to physically throw it in the rubbish bin. It was retrieved by my daughter who could not believe I’d throw out a book. It was. Too disturbing for me. ,/p. unexpected. But it’s not for the faint-hearted.

    • 4/5
      Honest intelligent heart wrenching uncensored candor account of a mother’s emotional responsibility guilt and toll after a son’s grotesque actions
    • 3/5
      Billed as a is a psychological thriller. The book is 400 pages in length (too long) and told in epistolary form as Kevin's mother is writing to Kevin's father; the question being what to do about Kevin. Kevin, besides being psycho is cunning. He has his father fooled as to his true nature. This book is painful to read; long, at times boring. I think some good editing would have helped this book; cut out the bland to save the good (the last 100 pages).
    • 4/5
      Numb and kind of drained, that is how the book left me. Not to mention the bad dreams it resulted into because I’d finished it before going to bed. Don’t get me wrong, as a book, as a story it was absolutely gripping. It made me very uncomfortable but that just shows how effective the writing was. The theme, let’s just face it, was clearly not to make the reader brimming with joy.

      For me it is the characters that make or break a book and from that perspective, the book was perfect. Rarely have I come across a character as engrossing as Eva, from the very beginning I wanted to get to know her. Throughout the book I sympathized with her. She had an interesting life, a great career, a great marriage; in fact everything was going so well that she found herself too happy and rather bored with that happiness. So despite not wanting children her whole life she decided to have one just to change things.

      Unfortunately that child is anything but a child and her life transformed into one horror story, in every sense of the word. In fact that is the word that came to my mind when I saw the film based on this book. There are no ghosts, nothing supernatural but that film scared me harder than anything other worldly ever has.

      To be honest, it is other worldly, because are children born with existential angst, raging within themselves? Can a child or even most adults be capable of the kind of viciousness and cunning that we see in Kevin, and how can some people (Franklin) completely miss it and turn against the person they’ve loved for years when they point out the obvious?
      The hyper enthusiastic face with thinly veiled sarcasm he put up for his dad was not that great a mask but Franklin was being ridiculed and duped the whole time with all the ‘Gee Dad’. Kevin was at war with his mother from the time he shunned her milk when he was less than a day old. He hated her but perhaps also found her much more honest than his dad, so in a twisted, paradoxical way, he may have even liked her. Some of their exchanges were worth savoring. They may at times be ‘bonding’ even. Had not the clouds of a tragedy yet to happen, been hovering, getting ever nearer.

      The ending is heartbreaking as we get to know the reality about Franklin and Celia despite the fact that I knew about it because I had seen the film. From the point of view of someone who didn’t, they would have expected the shooting (not exactly shooting, more like ‘target practice’) but the mind numbing, horrifying climax; I’m not sure how many would have worked that out.

      Kevin hated being alive, the fact of his existence was that it a pointless chore, a drudgery. He symbolized the destruction of everything worth loving. He did what he did and made it eventful, himself the center, ‘the context’, the kind of person watched by the rest of the humanity. He destroyed several lives, of those who he murdered, their loved ones and his own mother’s. It took him a couple of years to realize that, it came gradually, if not the weight of his deed, at least of what will become of him. We see desperation in Kevin for the first time in the last few pages of the book and his own doubts surface- “ I thought I knew, but now I am not so sure.”

    • 1/5
      the narrators voice was annoying and authors writing style dont waste your time!
    • 4/5
      Never in my life have I read something like Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin. I knew it would be dark and chilling, but I wasn’t expecting what I read. The book tells the story of Eva, who is writing a series of letters to her husband trying to recounting and trying to understand what happened to cause their son, Kevin into a sociopath. It’s no secret that Kevin killed nine of his classmates in a Columbine style attack (you find this out in the first 10 pages) but there is so much more to the story to keep you reading.



      From the very start, you are going to hate Kevin – you’ll probably even hate Eva – their relationship is far from perfect and it is possible that this may scare you from wanting to have kids (definitely having kids like Kevin). There was nothing really wrong with Kevin’s childhood, he was given everything he could ever need; he was just stuck in suburban hell. The underlining theme of this book for me is the whole nature versus nurture debate. It could have been Eva’s ambivalence to Kevin and motherhood that affected him, or something else. I’m sure there is arguments about what caused Kevin to be the way he was; was he born with it, was it his parents, his home life, or something completely different.



      For someone that never had kids, Lionel Shriver wrote rather well about motherhood and all the fears and worries that might come with the job. We Need to Talk about Kevin is very dark, so I don’t recommend it to everyone, but having said that, it is well worth the read if you think you can handle it. Apparently there is a movie adaptation of this coming soon, I don’t know how well that would work, I’m sure it will lose a lot of the feelings you get from the book.
    • 3/5
      Very bland until the last quarter of the book, then I couldn't put it down!
    • 4/5
      I found this to be a bit of a chore for the first ¾, but the last quarter was really amazing. An excellent read, fascinating and depressing.
    • 4/5
      The events and characters described in this book seem implausible and grotesque. It is hard to believe anyone could ever be so awful as this mother and son are depicted, as spineless and oblivious as the father, or as compliant as the daughter. I cannot say I liked the book, and nevertheless I still give it a passing thought every now and then - the characters were drawn so well, you can't help regretting the choices they made - if only these few things had gone differently...A study in unnecessary tragedy. And yet, I'd read another Lionel Shriver book. It was tragic and a little horrible. But it was never boring.
    • 5/5
      "We need to talk about Kevin" is a story of motherhood not as a happy family ideal but as a gritty reality. From the moment he's placed at her breast, Eva and her son are estranged from each other, yet tied together by the chain of the happy middle-class family and the weight of the expectations of motherhood. WNTTAK is dictated as a series of letters written by Eva to her husband in which she talks through the life of their son, from their decision to concieve to the day he became a murderer. She talks through experiences all too common to women, about feeling she had lost herself when she became a mother, she finally finds a way to speak about all the things that bothered her. I like how the book is unafraid in taking the glass of motherhood, exposing that behind the cliched phrases and cookies and school runs, mothers are people too who are capable of a wide and complex array of emotions towards their own offspring, including fear and hatred. It also does well to adress the problems of controlling a teenager, something parents are expected to do, but how on earth do you? I also like the falability of the narative. This is all Eva's thoughts, her opinions. Nothing is concete, nothing is fact, just her perceptions. Maybe Kevin was always bad to the core, a dangerous scheming child who is unable to connect to the emotions of other, maybe he was made that why by his mothers perceptions, a self-forfilling prophecy generated by how difficult he was as baby and his percieved lack of love for her. Brobably both these things and more. We need to talk about Kevin is a complex book about mothers and children and family's and how our own expectations damn us. The only thing I'd change is the long sequence at the end describing the shooting. It's presented as verbatim fact when Eva was not there and had no way of knowing it. If it had been written as her imagining the scene, it would have been better.
    • 4/5
      An unsettling book, written in a very interesting way. The letters from the mother of a teenager responsible for an American school massacre slowly reveal the circumstances leading to the event, from her point of view. An unease is present throughout the book as we are informed of various incidents surrounding Kevin, which his mother is in no doubt are perpetrated by him.Although the book raises some interesting questions about both parenthood and childhood, it was very hard to read through. Not because of the content, but because of the writing style combined with the copy I read having big pages and tiny words. Although I wanted to keep reading to find out what would happen next, I would often have to force myself through pages inch by inch.Definitely worth reading though.
    • 4/5
      I found this to be a bit of a chore for the first ¾, but the last quarter was really amazing. An excellent read, fascinating and depressing.
    • 3/5
      Billed as a is a psychological thriller. The book is 400 pages in length (too long) and told in epistolary form as Kevin's mother is writing to Kevin's father; the question being what to do about Kevin. Kevin, besides being psycho is cunning. He has his father fooled as to his true nature. This book is painful to read; long, at times boring. I think some good editing would have helped this book; cut out the bland to save the good (the last 100 pages).
    • 4/5
      This book was intriguing, yet very, very disturbing for a number of reasons. Eva, mother to the murdering teenage boy, is brutally honest about her misconceptions of motherhood, her feelings toward her shameless, saucy little boy, and her apparent guilt regarding his murderous rampage. Clearly, motherhood was not something that came easily to Eva; instead her maternal instincts were cold and contrived. Does that make her responsible for what her son ultimately became? Absolutely not. Although Eva is far from mother of the year, I truly believe that Kevin had something inherently wrong with him. Sure Eva wasn't always warm and fuzzy, but there is no denying that Kevin's actions (from a frighteningly early age) were premeditated, malicious, and calculating. This could not be the sole cause of the environment in which he grew up. Even so, I'd place more of the blame for Kevin's actions and behaviors on his father, Franklin. Although Eva was chilly, Franklin tried too hard to be Kevin's friend and defended him time and again when Kevin was questioned about, well, you name it--tormenting his kindergarten classmates, causing a neighbor's bicycle accident, throwing bricks from a bridge onto a highway, Franklin always saw good in Kevin; at least Eva saw her son for the monster he truly was. With that said, this is definitely a book I would recommend reading. Although I can't say I loved any of the characters (except, perhaps, poor little Celia), they were well developed and remained true throughout the novel. The pacing of the novel was good, allowing the reader to gain just the right amount of insight into Kevin and his family at the appropriate time in the book. What I liked best was that the author led up to a much needed climax with an excruciating ending that I didn't see coming.
    • 5/5
      Wow. I admit that I was tepid about this book much of the way through it. Still I read on, gripped by the story in spite of myself. The ending, however, was phenomenal, and after reading it, I felt all the pieces I thought hadn't fit together well throughout the book just kind of slide into place.

      I particularly like the idea that there is an invisible barrier between the awful thoughts we might have and our actions, and that the most terrifying thought is the reality that there truly is no barrier. I remember having a feeling like this when I first got my drivers license and I realized that there was really nothing keeping me from driving off the road. Around the same teenage time, I remember sitting in a quiet class and thinking there was nothing keeping me from just screaming. I never drove off the road and I never screamed in class, and until reading this book, I never thought of why exactly it was I hadn't.
    • 4/5
      At first, this book seems to be about a mass-murdering Columbine-style kid and whether or not he was born that way or his mother, who didn't love him, made him that way. Nature v nurture. Old.

      Or perhaps its the lonely ramblings of a woman who has nothing left except guilt, and its only guilt and anything that feeds it that sustains her. Like a drug addict she gets her fix from visiting her son, then the rush, the letters, free-flowing words, all the guilt tumbling almost joyously out, no details spared. But she isn't taking drugs and she isn't really writing letters either.

      I really enjoyed it. A good read.

    • 2/5
      It was too slow. There were lots of uninteresting details. The narrative felt pretentious and not-so-smart after a certain point. I was interested to learn more about Kevin and less about her roaming the streets of Europe. I couldn't finish it, I stopped around page 85. I'm not sure I would attempt to read it anytime soon.
    • 5/5
      A story told in the first person via letters written by Eva to her estranged husband Franklin. She writes about their son Kevin who three days before he turned 16 killed 13 people 9 of them his fellow classmates. More specifically she writes about motherhood, Kevin's upbringing/childhood through their parenthood. The 2 basic questions throughout the book are:Why?Nature v Nurture?What's interesting about this book is that it's compelling because of the two questions above yet at the same time I HATED the characters Eva the most of all. Although I might have liked the post-Thursday Eva more judging from what little was included about post-Thursday.
    • 3/5
      This felt so long and dragging. Like a bad film you seem to quit.
    • 5/5
      I think I can say that I am in the "liked it" camp for this book. I hated it the first 50-or so pages - I found the narrator self indulgent and I thought, "well of course her son would be a murderer." But I became more sympathetic as the novel went on - Eva's gut belief that there is something not quite right about Kevin was constantly being pushed aside by her husband, Franklin. "Boys will be boys;" "What did that incident have to do with my son?" He seems as though he could never truly believe the horrors that his son was capable of until the day he shot and killed his classmates. It brought up a lot of nature vs. nurture questions that I still don't have answers to.I don't usually talk to coworkers or friends in real life about the books that I'm reading because I don't want to bore them, but I found myself bringing this one up at random points. Little things that would happen throughout the day would remind me about something in this book. I think that's why I liked it - there were glimmers of reality throughout the book and I could compare it to the work that I do
    • 5/5
      This book follow the aftermath of that Thursday in Eva Khatchadourians life when her son shot students a teacher and a cafteria worker at school.In letters to her husband she looks at their life from young and carefree newly weds through the decision of having children and the fact that she had not bond with her son (Kevin). She wonders whether this lack of bonding and the fact that the feeling was mutual from his side was the reason behind the shooting. Or was it due to the fact of overkill of love from her husband and Kevin ended playing each other off against each other.As her life unfolds through the letters you follow the growth of Kevin to being able to think for himself and break away from his family and also the norm of school life. Also you watch the family try to save themselves by having a second child to that final decision when the toll reaches breaking point........Will Eva's questions ever get answered by either Kevin or her husband? Does she even want answers or is this a form of therapy which she knows in the long run is just a rant to open space.......Not a fast moving book but there is a build up of tension and storyline which makes the book interesting from page 1 to the end. And there is a twist at the end which you do not expect.
    • 5/5
      By the time I read this book I thought I was all horrored out. It had been a long time since I read something that really kept me glued to the pages from start to finish as my blood ran colder and colder.Kevin, as I'm sure we all know by now, is Shriver's representation of those boys who, one day, walk into school and start killing. However, although it quickly becomes clear that this is what will eventually happen, the majority of the book focuses on his upbringing and his relationships with the rest of his family. The book is Shriver's attempt to understand why these things happen and what it is that drives the people concerned.Kevin's birth is resented by his mother and she is unable to love him in the way that, later, she loves his sister. Then again, many babies are born into less-than-ideal families and they don't all turn out to be serial killers. In fact, Kevin's mother, who tells the story, is at least able to conceal her feelings from him and, in all practical ways, is an adequate parent. His father, on the other hand, can see no wrong in him. It's a situation that is all too common and we are immediately plunged into the debate about whether a parent creates the psychology of their child (Mum to blame, as usual) or whether some children are inherently evil and, therefore, unlikeable.The real beauty of the book, for me, is the way we are privy to every significant event in Kevin's life and yet are never really able to say 'That was the point where it all went wrong. I can see what could have been done to change things.' Does that suggest that Kevin was always wicked or simply that parents are largely helpless?The alienation between Kevin and his mother is so sensitively portrayed that, however much we love our own children, it rings eerily familiar bells for any parent who has ever looked into their newborn's cot and wondered 'Who are you? What will you become?' I'm not sure that the book answers any of the questions it poses but then, isn't that usually the way in real life and good fiction? What makes it not only a great read but also, I believe, an important book, is that the questions are asked in the first place and it is impossible not to ponder them.An interview with Lionel Shriver makes the point that the title of the book is a wake-up call to all of us. It doesn't refer only to Kevin's parents but to parents everywhere and, perhaps even more-so, to society as a whole. We do need to talk about Kevin; all of us. And if we don't do it soon, it may be too late.
    • 5/5
      This book is one of the most compelling works I've ever read. It is both terrifying and fascinating, and extremely well-written. To the point where you are forced to remind yourself that this is indeed fiction, and not the tragic memories of a broken family. When society is struck by an event so terrible that it unnerves us, we rush to find a reason, an explanation. Why? But what if a reason cannot be pin-pointed. A single effect doesn't necessarily have a single cause. This is what it is like to read through the psychological development of Kevin. Or as his mother, Eva, states, "Me, I think you only get a gist by assembling all the tiny inconclusive anecdotes...that seem irrelevant until you collect them in a pile."Eva Katchadourian is self-described as "selfish, mean, and small-minded." Selfish perhaps, but small-minded and mean I think not. Her mother has been a recluse ever since her father died as a soldier overseas. This caused her to have a burning desire for freedom, which manifests itself as the cosmopolitan CEO of a travel guide company, "Wing and a Prayer." She admits to having a fascination with maps, which she associates with mastery over her life. However, it also forced her mind to create high expectations of the world around her. She refers to this as her "underfear, " a constant nagging fear of being disappointed. Criticism is her mind's safeguard. One can't be disappointed if something is inherently flawed. Thus one the major milestones of her life, the birth of her first child, "was going wrong from the start." "In the very instant of his birth, I associated Kevin...with not only suffering, but defeat." At first this seems very cruel, cold, and unthinkable, but not without reason. An encounter with some neighborhood boys as a child left Eva "truly frightened by boys." Note she says "boys," not "men." As far as Eva knows, her father is an icon on the mantle, a man she hardly knew, but had to revere. It is this kind of blind adoration of her father, that I believe caused Eva to form a subtle dependence on her husband. Yes Eva is intelligent, cultured, and wealthy in her own right, but after Kevin is born, she will not share the sole object of her affection. Mind, what we read is Eva in hindsight. She considers her eyes closed until they were fully opened by Kevin. She considers herself mean, because she has had time for self-reflection. Had not Kevin performed these acts, she may never have realized any of this, or feel any form of regret. Now that she has, we can say that there is goodness in her, even if that realization came too little too late.Meet Kevin's father and Eva's husband Franklin. She describes his parent's as rational, purposeful people with little imagination. Therefore Franklin has always known there to be an answer for everything. There is nothing wrong with Kevin, for that would imply a cause, something his mind refuses to address. Eva often refers to his need to fit the mold of the perfect American family. His denial of Kevin's behavior even goes so far as to undermine his wife's pleads and protests. This "Kevin-can-do-no-wrong" mind-set makes Franklin open to manipulation. What he believes is confidence, is just Kevin telling him what he wants to hear. To discipline Kevin is again, to imply that Kevin is "defective." After all, Franklin's family motto is "Materials are everything." If a material is defective, it must be gotten rid of. This is absurd to him. He remains optimistic and avoids confrontation out of self-preservation. He tries to act closer to Kevin with gifts, but since Franklin cannot be honest with himself, he never earns Kevin's trust. Finally there is Kevin Katchadourian. The boy who found "the secret" to true apathy. It's said that babies can sense the feelings of their mother even while inside the womb. That may be true to Kevin, for he came out feeling like a disappointment. Although rejecting the touch of his mother as a baby, Kevin craves the attention of his father. But even the affections of his father are somewhat ingenuine. His denies him nothing in his quest to be "chummy Dad," and becomes predictable. Meanwhile Kevin begins to associate repetitive action, or general annoyance, as the only way to get a reaction out of his mother, knowing that he can get away with it. Eva claims that Kevin didn't have a "why" phase, as most kids do to provoke a response, instead he was constantly disgruntled. As a child, toys become "stupid" or "dumb" and provoke no interest in Kevin. He knows only criticism and judges everything accordingly. Eva herself is very judgmental, yet does not enjoy feelings of self-consciousness, so Kevin can only see her as a hypocrite. Kevin also enjoys monotony. Monotony is predictable, like his father, so Kevin always maintains control. But monotony lacks imagination, and it must be broken up by lashing out at others around him. "Vandalism offers release." Although never admitting it, he is angered by his mother's doting on his new baby sister, Celia. Franklin, in his his denial of Kevin, actually becomes somewhat neglectful of Celia. At which point Eva states that "Celia is mine and Kevin is yours" and the family divided is the final straw. There is no feeling of familial loyalty in Kevin. His parents and his own mind have caused himself to be indifferent, apathetic, and uncompassionate but also focused, fearless, and very patient. This of course turns out to be a deadly combination.
    • 4/5
      It's not really a "favorite part " kind of book. It's interesting and engaging from the start, but follows the story of an entirely unlikeable family whose dysfunctional dynamics have caused a great deal of tragedy for others. It is told from the perspective of the mother, a cold,immature, pretentious woman with an undeserved sense of superiority, who is seemingly incapable of confrontation when it is absolutely required. It's awful and insightful at the same time, with the effect of a looming sense of doom as the story progresses. It's not a fun book, but it is fascinating
    • 5/5
      WOW!!! I seriously wasn't expecting this book to be erotic, BDSM and emotional. Gaby has been Cal's sub for three years, she wants his love and marriage. Because of the death of his first wife Cal has refused both to love and marry ever again. Something happens to Gaby, that makes her think Cal will never want her again and she decides to leave him, especially since he does not love her. This story is about the road to Cal winning Gaby back. This story may not touch everyone like it did me, maybe it touched me because of the struggles Gaby goes through as a result of her incident....THERE IS A HEA in this story and the part when Gaby "bares all" to Cal and his reaction was tender and sweet. I can't even say much more about this, just thinking about the story gets the tears flowing. This story hits close to home, not the BDSM part, but because the incident that happens to Gaby has happened to one of my aunts and I have witnessed first hand, via my aunt, the emotions and feelings that Gaby goes through about self image.