Review

For my 'News Agenda' class, we have to review a book, so I decided to do one I had recently read:

Review of the book We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Kevin Khatchadourian killed seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher, shortly before his sixteenth birthday.

It is the mother of Kevin, who narrates the story, through a series of letters to her separated husband.

Eva informs the reader of the life of Kevin, through these letters and wonders how much she is to blame for her son’s ‘flawed’ character.

Shriver explores the theme of Nature versus Nurture and it’s relation to the human psyche. This makes the reader question the motives of the youths who commit high school murders.

It is a frank account of a family’s life through the years, and how we don’t always like the people we love.

It is a great risk to write about something so prominent in the media, especially in America. Yet Shriver pulls it off with her own satirical view of American culture.

The characters are all complicated, layered and trapped within their own personalities.

Shriver investigates her characters limitations and their relation to one another in the confined space of the family home.

Who actually needs to talk about Kevin? Maybe we all do.