Most of me hated him and no part of me could understand why he did what he did. the smallest part of me felt bad for him because his mother didn’t really love him or trust him at all. No matter what Eva and Franklin did, they couldn’t change Kevin.Īs the reader, I never knew what to feel for Kevin. “Why can’t they keep that kid quiet?” “Just give the darn kid back his toy so he’ll shut up and we can get back to what we’re doing.” A parent can only do so much to control their child because each human being has the ability to make choices: their own free will. When we hear a child crying in church or screaming at a restaurant, our initial thought is to blame the parents. Kevin and Celia received almost identical upbringings and turned out as different as Mother Teresa and Hitler. Eva tried to be a good mother and Franklin was a loving father, but Kevin himself was not going to be a good child. Nurture lines is pretty clear in this book. I watched an interview wish Shriver on YouTube and she talked a lot about what she was trying to say with this book. The two timelines, present and past reflection, converge on the Thursday Kevin committed the crime in a way that will make you late for work so you can finish reading it. The reader is introduced to the victims families and those who Eva now associates, having sold her prosperous business to pay for legal lawyers. Her letters build layers upon layers of depth to the act that Kevin committed while not yet revealing why he did it or how.

She tells us about how she and Franklin decided to have children, how difficult it was for her to care for baby Kevin, and her frustrations as he grew up. Her series of letters take the writer back over 18 years to before Kevin was born. Eva visits Kevin in his juvenile detention center and the interactions prompt her to write letters to her ex-husband, Franklin. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel ShriverĮva Khatchadourian’s son committed a heinous crime, murdering eleven people and making national headlines as a school shooter.

Kevin lionel shriver