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We Need to Talk About Kevin
A Literary Fiction Novel by Lionel Shriver
Subgenres:
- Psychological Fiction,
- Epistolary,
- Domestic Fiction
This book is for you if you're into...
- Dark explorations of a mother's guilt after unthinkable violence
- Stories that question nature versus nurture in chilling ways
- Narratives told through raw, confessional letters
From Little Stack
Not every woman becomes a mother willingly. Eva certainly didn’t. It doesn’t help that the little boy she raised was always cold and indifferent. So, when he ended up murdering seven of his fellow high school students, Eva was the only one who wasn’t surprised. But two years after that horrific day, Eva is forced to reckon with the truth and face the disturbing reality that perhaps she played a direct role in that terrible tragedy.
The inspiration for the film starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, this 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 remains terrifyingly prescient.
Eva never really wanted to be a mother. And certainly not the mother of a boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much–adored teacher in a school shooting two days before his sixteenth birthday.
Neither nature nor nurture exclusively shapes a child's character. But Eva was always uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood. Did her internalized dislike for her own son shape him into the killer he's become? How much is her fault?
Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with Kevin's horrific rampage, all in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. A piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence and responsibility, this is a stunning examination of how tragedy affects a town, a marriage, and a family.
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