100 Books in 2018

52/ we need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver

read: 17.07.18 - 19.07.18

book: We Need To Talk About Kevin

author: Lionel Shriver

blurb: Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who tried to befriend him. 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 absent husband, Franklyn. 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.

review: This has always been one of the top books on my 'books I've always wanted to read' list, and if I'm honest I've always been scared that it won't meet my ridiculously high expectations for it.

To be honest, for the first 200 pages I wasn't feeling massively engrossed or engaged in the book. I was too busy anticipating the real event, the main action. But as the plot soon began to unfold and Eva's letters begun to relate more and more to recent years this book became incredible.

It was so well-executed and the tone was completely on point. It was abrupt, almost clinical in points, riddled with black humour and chilling recounts from the mother. There was this sense of creepiness which was so captured so well in this book. Kevin was bone-chillingly creepy, but he was made creepy in such a creative and completely original way. He wasn't creepy because his haircut was bad or he had oily skin, he was creepy because he was so scarily aloof, strategic and manipulative.

This was a morbidly interesting read, and one I know I will revisit again and again.

rating: 10/10