About this title: Focusing on a boy who kills seven of his fellow students, Shriver tells a resonant story while framing the horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy--the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9781582432670ISBN:1582432678
Description: Very good in good dust jacket. Pages in nearly like new condition. DJ shows some slight wear. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 416 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781852424671ISBN:1852424672
Description: Acceptable. A readable copy. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (the dust cover may be missing). Pages can include considerable notes-in pen or highlighter-but the notes cannot obscure the text. ******PLEASE NOTE****** Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas unless you select EXPEDITED shipping! Thank you & Happy Holidays! read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. 1582432678 Copy has been read but remains in nice & clean condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or high-lighting. Spine is tight; a clean read. Some shelf wear to the cover. Interior of book is in great condition. HAS REMAINDER MARK. read more
Description: Very Good. 006112429X Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light curve to the spine / light reading creases to the covers. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 7/3/2006
ISBN-13:9780061124297ISBN:006112429X
Description: Fine. 006112429X NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9781582432670ISBN:1582432678
Description: Fine in very good dust jacket. Not a library copy. Not overstock. No marks what so ever! ! ! Read once-perfect condition! Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 416 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Good; Harper Perennial, New York
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780061124297ISBN:006112429X
Description: Reprint. Small 8vo 7½"-8" tall A little soiling on bottom page edges; light browning around page edges; spine slightly cocked; shelfwear on spine; 400 pages. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 2004-05-01
ISBN-13:9780060724481ISBN:006072448X
Description: Good. Minor shelf wear; Corners lightly bumped; No spine creases; Faint reading crease front cover by spine; Mild rubbing to both covers; Minor tanning\soiling to page edges; Remainder mark on bottom page edges by spine; Spine ends mildly bumped; ** Free USPS tracking and confirm on US orders ** read more
"This book explores the question of nature vs nurture. If you raise a psychopath was he born that way or did the fact that you never bonded with him turn him into one? I could see so many classic behaviors in the book, relationships I have witnessed, characteristics in people I know, that I chewed on the consequences and effects quite a bit as I read. In the end, I wasn't left with a satisfied feeling, but an empty, frustrated, almost evil one. Welcome to Eva's life.
Here's what I think: the fact that Eva never wanted Kevin affected him. I think a child knows that before its born. The boy was brilliant; he had to have known from infancy that his mother's touch was cold and to know that you are unlovable certainly leaves it mark. When the only attention a child receives is negative, they'll manipulate that anger because that strength of passion is the closest thing to love they feel. But that doesn't mean that Kevin would have had a cheery happy disposition if Eva had only showered him with love. I think Kevin was born with a tendency toward the negative and Eva only expounded that. Many of these exasperated parents fall into the wrong patterns when their children push them to the edge. It is not easy to love a difficult, angry child, but to expound the situation with anger and withholdings of love is always the wrong answer. When that infant was placed in Eva's arms and she decide at that moment to play power struggle with him, she set the boundaries for a game she could not win, even if she did. And even when she realized the battle was unwinnable, she still let Kevin set the rules and drive the game instead of relenting and reevaluating the way she dealt with him. She didn't decide she loved Kevin because she was tired or lazy; she gave up the battle because he finally conceded. She won at a horrible price.
I don't think Eva ever realized just how much Kevin loved her. His hatred and desperate attempts to gain her negative attention was a manifestation of that love and her rejection of it. His rejection of his father had less to do with his shallow inane attempts at a relationship and more to do with the realization that those behaviors are what earned Eva's love. Eva shared the same disdain for life and people that Kevin did, but she was the one person who say how he was and truly rejected him for it. It must have seemed so hypocritical to him. I wanted to feel sorry for Eva, but I found her culpable. I'm not sure how much blame I place on Franklin for never listening to her concerns about Kevin and how much I think she dug her own grave. Certainly I felt her frustration and understand what it's like to feel out of sorts by disdainful personalities, but I do not exonerate her or excuse away her self-centeredness either. If Eva had tried, then Franklin would not have defended Kevin so fiercely and met her halfway. The scene where she takes Kevin to dinner and then avoids him because he trashes on her hypocrisy wanted to make me shake her. It was the one scene where I found Kevin lovable (other than when he was sick) and instead of swallowing her pride and using the opening to forge a relationship on his terms, she dismisses him. That's not to say that I could have done much better. There were times when I wanted to slap that boy and devised my own plans for power play. But I think I would have tried to love or at least understand him and experimented with different attempts at a relationship. Going through the motions was never an attempt with Eva. Every child is lovable on some level aren't they?
The writing is awfully pretentious, and it's not even the most pretentious thing about the book. All these books were inspired by Columbine. We all know that. So to write a book about school violence that takes place ten days before Columbine as if Shriver's character was the one who pushed Harris and Klebold over the edge did not sit right with me. Obviously the fictitious event had to take place sometime, but to claim that it affected history embedded in American memory is pretentious. Plus there's supposed to be a twist at the end that I found blatantly obvious from the beginning and sometimes had to reread Eva's passages because they didn't seem congruent with what I knew was coming. It doesn't always quite line up, these long-winded explanations to her husband who experienced them too. It made the writing feel more pretentious.
Shriver also pushes the envelope with her language and violence in a way that I found unnecessary. Obviously there are going to be scenes with Kevin, but the graphic nature of them was at times too much. What I found shocking had nothing to do with Shriver's distasteful way of representing the sordid details. I found it so backwards the way Eva excuses away allowing her 5-year-old to watch Braveheart and as she's desensitizing him assumes that her son who refuses to show weakness because it makes him vulnerable is already calloused. A lot of Kevin's inappropriate behavior (language, disrespect for sex, disdain for life) were traits he was raised to have. The way Eva feels she is accepting and open for not setting moral boundaries is unfortunately not that uncommon. Those kids from the sixties who rejected their parents' religion and morality don't realize that those guidelines shaped them and to not offer the same universal questions to their children means that they will take their rebellion even further, to a world I can't imagine these hippie kids would embrace. It is these greater moral questions that Shriver through Eva never addresses. The leniency with which many parents raise their children has an adverse affect. They don't feel gratitude for not having restrictions; they take the dismissal of morality for granted to an alarming amount. It is the lack of morality that I wish had been shown as just as culpable, and more shocking, than the lack of love a mother can have for her son."
"Some readers really don't like this book and I'm not entirely sure why.
Maybe it's because I'm not a mother and I did find it believable that Eva doesn't love her son completely.
Maybe it's because I enjoy the big words that were used in the letters and found it believable that she would write this way.
Maybe I'm a sucker for good endings and this one ended with a bang.
I think the writing was superb and despite it being a hard book to read (the incident with the maps was particularly brutal), it was worth it. I think this dealt with the issue of school killings much more effectively than Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes. The character of Kevin did come alive for me and he was believable. I didn't even think that counseling might be an option because Franklin 100% believed that his son was fine and probably would have opposed Eva if she had suggested it. Just like she never thinks about them divorcing, she also never considers giving her son help.
Overall, I'm glad I was able to finish it and I'm going to read more of the author's works."
"It's hard to know where to start in evaluating this novel. I would fall asleep reading it, then awaken in the wee hours and turn the light on to resume reading. It's haunting and it is dark, dark, dark. It is told in first person, by Eva, the mother of Kevin, her 15-year-old son who has committed mass murder "a la Columbine" and who is incarcerated. It is told entirely through her letters to her husband, Franklin, two years after the high school massacre. (Yes indeed, a true "epistolary" novel.) Throughout the novel, I found it to be a compelling examination of nature vs. nuture, relationships, motherhood, and the roots of evil. And some of the passages in the book made me pause and re-read. For example:
" Then, while I do hope this correspondence hasn't degenerated into shrill self-justification, I worry equally that I may seem to be laying the groundwork for claiming that Kevin is all my fault. I do indulge that sometimes, too, gulping down blame with a powerful thirst. But I did say "indulge." There's a self-aggrandizement in the wallowing mea culpas, a vanity. Blame confers an awesome power. And it's simplifying, not only to onlookers and victims but to culprits most of all. It imposes order on slag. Blame conveys clear lessons in which others may take comfort: "if only she hadn't--, and by implication makes tragedy avoidable."
It's good writing, no doubt. And provocative. But I was totally unprepared for the ending (which I won't reveal in any possible way). It made me go back and re-evaluate everything I had been thinking and feeling about this book and its characters.
That's probably why it received an award. And it's why I'm giving it 5 stars--it truly is amazing. But would I recommend it? Not to a casual reader. But am I glad I read it? Absolutely. I can't get it out of my mind.
And I thought Cormac McCarthy was dark. I'm now prepared to read "The Road.""
"Just given this book a second reading - its beautifully written, Lionel Shriver's prose is so elegant, so descriptive, it kind of sucks you in and carries you along, gently journeying towards its ghastly conclusion, through events that become increasingly shocking and raise so many more questions than answers. Maybe that's why I read it for a second time - looking for the answer to the questions - hoping that if we can explain what went wrong, the final deed will somehow be easier to reconcile. Was Kevin just born bad or is the final act a result of his fractured relationship with his mother? Can we trust Eva's interpretation of events? Is it, as Eva suggests, actually quite easy to step over the line, and commit "the unimaginable"? The only thing that seems certain is that it is probably impossible to answer the why question - even Kevin admits that he thought he once knew why, but some two years later he is not so sure. This is a deeply unsettling but compelling read , woven through with references to American High School killings, so many that I was constantly googling them to find out if they too were part of the fiction....they are not."
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