A review by lexi012996
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.5

It's hard to say that I actually enjoyed this book because it actually filled me with dread and despair, but I did think about it a lot while I was reading it and I'm still thinking about it days later so it was definitely effective in what it was trying to do. Personally I think I prefer books where I like at least one of the characters and this book was not that--I had sympathy for Eva but I didn't like her. I don't necessarily think she deserved what happened to her either (would anyone?). I spent a lot of my time with this book thinking "oh my god, what if this happens to me?" Or "what would I do?"--I think I hoped to separate myself from Eva by answering that I would be different, but I'm afraid that in the end I did see some of myself in her. 

 I also liked the format of the book and how it was fully written as letters. One note I have was that the descriptions of various school shootings throughout the book, real or invented, did get tedious after a while and I ended up skimming thru those sections by the end.
also I was totally shocked (perhaps I shouldn't have been) by the twist at the end and that made a lot of the rest of the book feel worth it to me. I was also really fascinated by the tone the book ended with and I'm still thinking about how I feel about that.
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