Book Addiction

We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

From the back cover –

In this gripping novel of motherhood gone awry, Lionel Shriver approaches the tragedy of a high-school massacre from the point of view of the killer’s mother.  In letters written to the boy’s father, mother Eva probes the upbringing of this more-than-difficult child and reveals herself to have been the reluctant mother of an unsavory son.  As the schisms in her family unfold, we draw closer to an unexpected climax that holds breathtaking surprises and its own hard-won redemption.  In Eva, Shriver has created a narrator who is touching, sad, funny, and reflective.  A Spellbinding read, We Need to Talk About Kevin is as original as it is timely.

 My thoughts –

This book has left me a tad bit stunned and I’m not quite sure what to say about it.  Having just finished reading it a few minutes ago, I can easily say that it is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, but at the same time I am so incredibly disturbed and upset by the content that I don’t know how to properly review it for all of you.  The character of Eva, the mother of Kevin and the narrator of the story, is SO absolutely believable and real that by the end of the book, my heart truly, truly broke for her and all that she had been through.  I’m sitting here, marveling at how a person can live through this kind of unspeakable grief that she has, only to remember that this is a novel, and Eva is only a character, not a real person.  The tragedies in this book felt so freaking real to me that I am just very, very sad right now.  Obviously, I know this is just a novel, but Shriver does do a creepily good job of highlighting all of the real school shootings that have taken place in America in the last few years, making We Need to Talk About Kevin not just disturbing in the far-off sense, but in the sense that although this particular story isn’t real, Eva could be any number of mothers in this country whose children have done the unthinkable.  Of course that’s what makes all scary stories truly scary – they have an element of truth to them that cannot be explained away.  This book is amazing – I strongly recommend it.  But don’t say I didn’t warn you – I’d be shocked by anyone not left feeling pretty upset after having read this book.

10 stars.

check out what these other bloggers had to say:  Lynne at Lynne’s Little Corner of the World, Raych at books i done read, litlove at Tales From the Reading Room, Care at Care’s Online Book Club, Lisamm at Books on the Brain, Bibliolatrist at Bibliolatry, and Dewey at The Hidden Side of a Leaf.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

From the back cover -

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts froma  shotgun held a few inches from their faces.  There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.  As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy.  In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

My thoughts -

It is actually difficult for me to put into words how I felt about this one.  Capote takes what could have been a simple, easy reading smut type true-crime story and turns it into what reads like a literary masterpiece of a novel.  The characterization of the killers is impeccable, and the novel’s description is right - the novel generated true empathy from me for the murderers.  So yes, this book was very well written, with just the right amount of suspense, shock/horror, and empathy all at once.  For some reason, however, it took me a very long time to get into the book.  I just was not drawn in from the beginning like I had expected I would be.  In addition, the only reason I really finished it is because it was one that I had been meaning to read forever after hearing so many good things about it.  Nothing really stuck with me from the first 100 pages; I could have just as easily put it down at that point and never went back.  The final third was what kept me going, once I got to the capture of the killers I couldn’t wait to find out what their fate actually was going to be.  The thing is, this novel truly is an excellent book, and I’m glad I did read the whole thing.  But do I think it’s amazing and everyone will love it?  Unfortunately, no.  I’d still recommend it, as long as you’re patient.  But again, that’s just me.

Rating - 7 out of 10

Read Eva’s review here.