Janet
12th July 2006, 16:44
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1852428899/202-6155275-7971843?v=glance&n=266239%22)
The Blurb
Kevin Katchadourian killed seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher, shortly before his sixteenth birthday.
He is visited in prison by his mother, Eva, who narrates in a series of letters to her estranged husband Franklin, the story of Kevin’s upbringing.
A successful career woman, Eva is reluctant to forgo her independence and the life she shares with Franklin to become a mother.
Once Kevin is born, she experiences extreme alienation and dislike of Kevin as he grows up to become a spiteful and cruel child. When Kevin commits murder, Eva fears that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become. But how much is she to blame? And if it isn’t her fault, why did he do it?
BEWARE - SPOILERS (AND A BIT OF PERSONAL STUFF!) AHEAD
It took me a while to get into this book (page 77 of the edition I read, which is different from the 'normal' version), but once I did, wow - I was hooked!
It made me feel shocked and sickened in places, and yes, I'll admit it, a little smug that I have such a good relationship with my children.
It begs the question whether children can be born evil. From personal experience, when I had my sonI suffered severe PND. I didn't know what was wrong with me at the time, of course. I just felt that I'd wanted a baby for so long (we'd been trying for 18 months and had just been referred to tests) and I had a very difficult pregnancy resulting in a 6 weeks premature baby - but when he was very little, he didn't seem to want to know me.
Like Eva, I had problems with breastfeeding and after a few weeks, my health visitor advised me to go onto the bottle with him.
I never felt he hated me, or that he was evil, and once I started bottle feeding things got much better, and then after a few months I went to say with my husband's parents for several weeks which helped me get over my PND. (My health visitor was a witch who just wanted to stuff me full of anti-depressants).
Anyway, I digress. As Kevin became older, I became more entralled about what would happen next. As soon as Celia was born, I had a sense of foreboding that something bad would happen to her eventually, and when Kevin said "Sure you don't want to say good-bye to Celie one more time? my blood ran cold.
I thought the ending of the book was very good. All too often endings are a real let-down. I didn't realise, until very close to the end of the book, that Franklin was dead - I'd seen Celia's death coming, but not his.
At times was a very difficult book to read emotionally, but compelling and, despite the subject matter, I really enjoyed it.
The 'normal' version of the paperback is 500 pages long (my version only 400 (although Amazon list it as 436!), which tells you how small the print was!) and is published by Serpent's Tail. The ISBN number is 1852424672.
9/10!
(Read July 2006)
The Blurb
Kevin Katchadourian killed seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher, shortly before his sixteenth birthday.
He is visited in prison by his mother, Eva, who narrates in a series of letters to her estranged husband Franklin, the story of Kevin’s upbringing.
A successful career woman, Eva is reluctant to forgo her independence and the life she shares with Franklin to become a mother.
Once Kevin is born, she experiences extreme alienation and dislike of Kevin as he grows up to become a spiteful and cruel child. When Kevin commits murder, Eva fears that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become. But how much is she to blame? And if it isn’t her fault, why did he do it?
BEWARE - SPOILERS (AND A BIT OF PERSONAL STUFF!) AHEAD
It took me a while to get into this book (page 77 of the edition I read, which is different from the 'normal' version), but once I did, wow - I was hooked!
It made me feel shocked and sickened in places, and yes, I'll admit it, a little smug that I have such a good relationship with my children.
It begs the question whether children can be born evil. From personal experience, when I had my sonI suffered severe PND. I didn't know what was wrong with me at the time, of course. I just felt that I'd wanted a baby for so long (we'd been trying for 18 months and had just been referred to tests) and I had a very difficult pregnancy resulting in a 6 weeks premature baby - but when he was very little, he didn't seem to want to know me.
Like Eva, I had problems with breastfeeding and after a few weeks, my health visitor advised me to go onto the bottle with him.
I never felt he hated me, or that he was evil, and once I started bottle feeding things got much better, and then after a few months I went to say with my husband's parents for several weeks which helped me get over my PND. (My health visitor was a witch who just wanted to stuff me full of anti-depressants).
Anyway, I digress. As Kevin became older, I became more entralled about what would happen next. As soon as Celia was born, I had a sense of foreboding that something bad would happen to her eventually, and when Kevin said "Sure you don't want to say good-bye to Celie one more time? my blood ran cold.
I thought the ending of the book was very good. All too often endings are a real let-down. I didn't realise, until very close to the end of the book, that Franklin was dead - I'd seen Celia's death coming, but not his.
At times was a very difficult book to read emotionally, but compelling and, despite the subject matter, I really enjoyed it.
The 'normal' version of the paperback is 500 pages long (my version only 400 (although Amazon list it as 436!), which tells you how small the print was!) and is published by Serpent's Tail. The ISBN number is 1852424672.
9/10!
(Read July 2006)