We Need to Talk About Kevin

Item: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Author: WhichBook

Lionel Shriver

In this harrowing novel, we see Eva coming to terms with having raised a mass murderer, Kevin. A read that might stretch your tolerance of children and seriously asks why people react in certain ways. It is all the more effective because it is written as a series of letters and will have you answering back.

Extract

Maybe my expectations of my fellows have been reduced to so base a level that the smallest kindness overwhelms me for being, like Thursday itself, so unnecessary. Holocausts do not amaze me. Rapes and child slavery do not amaze me. I am amazed when I drop a glove in the street and a teenager runs two blocks to return it. I am amazed when a checkout girl flashes me a wide smile with my change, though my own face had been a mask of expedience. Lost wallets posted to their owners, strangers who furnish meticulous directions, neighbours who water each other's houseplants - these things amaze me.

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