We Need To Talk About Kevin
Finally been reading this. So many people talk about it, I figured it was time…
I read an interview with Lionel Shiver (the letter she wrote to Kevin, printed in the Radio Times) and assumed that that had given away the story’s ending. It hadn’t, there was still one horrible surprise at the end. Probably the nastiest thing that happened in the whole novel.
And I hated Eva. I can’t even quite put my finger on why. I hated her use of the word ‘retard’, her pretending to be all liberal when actually she’s kinda ableist and homophobic (well, by my standards, I guess, which I know aren’t everyone’s.) I hated her hypocrisy…I hated almost everything about her. It’s rare for me to hate a fictional character, especially one we’re meant to probably feel sympathy for, but…I didn’t like her. Then again I didn’t like Kevin either. Or any of the adult characters at all. It’s a really bleak and depressing story…