We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Schriver

We Need To Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Schriver

Wow.

I have actively avoided reading this book for years; albeit for the wrong reasons. I had incorrectly thought that the book was letters from wife to husband requesting they discuss their son’s behaviour as she thought he had special needs. Like I said, I was wrong.

This book has a painfully slow start and had I not been reading it for a book group, I confess I may have given up on it.

However, in retrospect I think this slow build is deliberate and intended to fully put you in the mind of the mother, to understand her, to be able to predict how she would react and how she would feel.

Once this story grabs you it doesn’t let go and you find yourself turning page after page with a growing feeling of dread.

I won’t spoil it – go read it yourself. I’ve just finished it and am writing this feeling a kind of sick numbness and a sadness – how amazing that a book can evoke such emotion.