Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

18 reviews

ajlct's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

It's an excellent technical display of unlikeable characters and an unreliable narrator, but ultimately there was nothing redeeming about this book that made me glad to have read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Gun violence, Child abuse, Cursing, Medical trauma, Murder, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Child death, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racism, Sexual harassment, and Violence

kstericker's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Blood, Child abuse, Sexual content, Confinement, and Cursing

Moderate: Fatphobia, Racism, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Medical content, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Mass/school shootings

Minor: Body shaming, Self harm, Sexism, Pedophilia, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Racial slurs, and Body horror

waitforhightide's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I bought this book on a Book Date with my spouse and was excited to read it. I had stumbled upon the movie on Netflix several years ago, and while I've relaxed my <i> I MUST READ THE BOOK FIRST</I> policy, I do like to go back and read source material for movies.

For reference, the movie really affected me, and I had a lot of emotions watching it, as a childless white person who is afraid of being pregnant or having children; and also as a millennial who has lived during the school shooting era. 

the remainder of this review is under spoiler text below, with spoilers and references to both the book and the movie.

While the movie <i>We Need to Talk About Kevin</i> is intriguing, leaving the viewer (or at least leaving me) wondering how much of Eva's experiences were because of Kevin's behavior and how much was her emotional reaction to being a reluctant mother with a challenging child, I really felt that the parts that were just in the novel and not the film adaptation soured the story for me. I found Eva as a narrator pretentious to a fault, and dripping with privilege in a way that she (and the author?) somehow manages to acknowledge and do absolutely <i>nothing</i> about at the same time. Where the movie left me sympathetic to her, almost everything in the book--from being a self-proclaimed liberal person living with a staunch Republican and never seeming to see this as an issue, to being a woman with wealth but never seeking psychiatric help for her children, or even attempting--left me annoyed. 

I think I would have given this book another quarter or half star if the interview with the author pages afterwards were not written in almost exactly the same tone of voice, implying to me that Lionel Shriver is writing a somewhat dark and speculative piece of fiction without ever once bothering to deviate from her own high class, borderline-academic, high-brow writing style. I may have seen Eva as a sharp-edged and uncomfortable critique on what the upper-middle-class suburban parent contributes to the psychology of their sons as school shooters if I was even once able to distinguish Shriver's personal voice from Eva's narration.

That said, I could not, and I was left frustrated and annoyed with a book that pointed out so many flaws, both personal and systemic, in the story, and managed to grow from, reflect on, or even truly empathize with almost none of them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, and Death

Moderate: Gaslighting

jessbrownette's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Vomit, Pregnancy, and Violence

ehart416's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.75

Keeps you hooked from beginning to end, despite you knowing exactly what's about to happen.  There is a perfect balance of ambiguity when it comes to who is really at fault and it is shockingly well executed.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Pregnancy, Mass/school shootings, and Cursing

Minor: Eating disorder

pockymonster_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Child death, Death of parent, Death, Violence, Toxic relationship, Torture, Sexual harassment, Rape, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Hate crime, Gun violence, Gore, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Body shaming, and Animal cruelty

ellensmith's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Damn. Really good. Really sad. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Bullying, Body shaming, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Murder, and Pregnancy

holly_mc's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Excrement and Sexual content