We Need to Talk About Kevin movie tie-in: A Novel

Written by:
Lionel Shriver
Narrated by:
Coleen Marlo

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
32
Narrator
16
Release Date
December 2011
Duration
16 hours 7 minutes
Summary
'Impossible to put down. . . . Who, in the end, needs to talk about Kevin? Maybe we all do.” — Boston Globe

Acclaimed author Lionel Shriver's gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry

Shriver’s resonant story of a mother’s unsettling quest to understand her teenage son’s deadly violence, her own ambivalence toward motherhood, and the explosive link between them reverberates with the haunting power of high hopes shattered by dark realities.

Eva never really wanted to be a mother—and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

Like Shriver’s charged and incisive later novels, including So Much for That and The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence, family ties, and responsibility.
Browse By Category
Reviews
Profile Avatar
Jamayne G.

This book is truly insufferable. I only made it through an hour and forty-five minutes of it.

The first 15 hours of this book were painfully slow and excruciating to get through.

Profile Avatar
Maria Nelson

3.5 is what I actually rate this book. The last hour or so made it worth my time even though it was sick and twisted. I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading this book but I'd give the caveat that it doesn't get interesting until the end.

Profile Avatar
Katie Crane

Could not get through the first hour of it. Main character is pretentious and annoying.

Profile Avatar
Holly Harrison

The narrator was brilliant, her voice made you feel every pull on her cold heart string. Asking the age old question of nature versus nurture was Kevin born evil or was he made that way. His mother never got to connect with him but was it because she was missing something or was it that he lacked something? Told through the narrator as letters to her husband it dictates Kevin’s life from before he was in the womb all the way to when he commits the murders to where he now sits in prison. An emotionally unnerving tale but an excellent one!

Profile Avatar
M K

I *loved* this book. It depressed and disturbed me--even though I didn't necessarily enjoy the way I felt through the whole reading, the book made such an impact on me that I was thinking about it for days afterwards. The writing is a little overblown, but that suits the narrator to a tee. This is in no way a feel-good read, so know what you're getting into.

1 book added to cart
Subtotal
$31.99
View Cart