Well, shoot!

You can tell a book has become part of the national consciousness on some level when it becomes the subject of a parody or a play on its name. Reading library apparently lists We Need to Talk About Kevin Keegan as its first hit rather than the book more likely to be searched for, Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. And left to my own devices, I think there was more chance I'd have picked up the former rather than the latter, which I had written off as misery lit (and from the book club discussion it appears I wasn't the only one) and something I would ordinarily steer well clear of. I'd also had some mixed reviews from generally trusted sources, some hating it and some loving it. Either way, it's something that may well have passed me by, but aside from anything else, part of the fun of doing this challenge is to pick up things that I perhaps wouldn't otherwise.

I'm pleased to say that my fears of what it might be weren't realised, which was certainly a good start. I did on the whole enjoy it, if such is the right word. I have some issues with it, but certainly it was a lot better than I was expecting. The writing was generally good, if a little pretentious for my liking, particularly at the beginning. I know that this is the narrator, but I have a strong hunch that there's quite a lot of the author in her. And I do sympathise with Eva a lot. In fact I sympathise with a lot of the characters for a variety of reasons. I do not, however, really like any of them. Our narrator may not be wholly reliable, it is hard to be looking back on such events with the benefit of a possibly twisted hindsight, but she is frankly honest and raises a lot of interesting questions and talking points that perhaps should be talked about more. Namely the responsibility of having children, the reasons for doing so, the fear of what might happen and how significantly they change your life.

As for Kevin, he's cold-blooded, calculating and to my mind, for want of a better word (and it's one I'm generally hesitant to use normally), evil. Especially in the way that he doesn't always do things directly himself, but it's how he can manipulate others into hurting themselves. My problem is that in my interpretation he was born that way and I don't really buy that; I lean much more towards nurture than nature. Sure, both of his parents had their own shortcomings, but I don't think they were bad per se, more that they had ordinary human fallability. As for the others, Franklin and Celia were pretty one-dimensional as chacracters, but they largely served their purpose of being the respective yangs to the yins of the other two.

I'm not sure about the ending either. It's clear that however warped their relationship is, mother and son still have that relationship and there is some weird, twisted kind of mutual respect there. I think it's supposed to be a message of hope and redemption, but I'm not sure I buy it. Maybe he has changed, realised he's done as much as he can ever do and is wondering where he can go from there. Maybe he is facing up to the fact he won't be in control any more the way he has been his entire life. I'm just not sure it fits. Either way though, it was an excellent choice for book club as there was much to talk about and it made for some really interesting discussions. And you can't argue with that.

Book number: 50
Title: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Author: Lionel Shriver
Category: Charlotte's choice