•2:03 PM
I'm going to write a short review about the last book I have read, whose title is "We need to talk about Kevin", by the American writer Lionel Shriver. This work won her a literature price in 2005. There are so many things that have drawn my attention in this novel:
- First of all, the style or format in which it's written. It's quite different from all the novels I've read so far, since it's based on the letters that a woman writes to her husband. Therefore, the reader gets information from only one person, who narrates her experiences over the last 15-20 years. To my mind, it's a really good choice, because that way, the story looks very natural and she can include things she never dared to tell her husband.
- Furthermore, the story itself is very interesting, gripping and realistic. In fact, things that are going on could happen in any other family, although it might sound unlikely at some points. And all this story makes you think about how a mother can't always feel proud of her son, about how hard being a mother could be. We tend to think raising a child is easy and fruitful and we immediately blame the parents for anything going wrong in the child, even though that's not always true.
- The book raises again the very famous issue of nature VS nurture through a very tragic yet unluckily realistic example. It also makes us question about some laws (or the lack of them) that are causing great damage, but they're still light years away from being abolished. The work treats other issues such as lack of affection as a result of a child's misbehaviour, difficulties in discovering what is happening in a teenager's mind or questioning about how fulfilled you might feel in some aspects in your life whereas others are going terribly.
In conclusion, I found the book thought-provoking and quite gripping, despite the lack of connection between some chapters (there's indeed a large number of flashbacks). The ending was quite unexpected as well, but I have to say that in the end, I felt that information in the story is not really accurate on purpose, so that the reader can't think about the dénouement of the events. However, this is the only main pitfall I found in such a great novel, so I strongly recommend it.
- First of all, the style or format in which it's written. It's quite different from all the novels I've read so far, since it's based on the letters that a woman writes to her husband. Therefore, the reader gets information from only one person, who narrates her experiences over the last 15-20 years. To my mind, it's a really good choice, because that way, the story looks very natural and she can include things she never dared to tell her husband.
- Furthermore, the story itself is very interesting, gripping and realistic. In fact, things that are going on could happen in any other family, although it might sound unlikely at some points. And all this story makes you think about how a mother can't always feel proud of her son, about how hard being a mother could be. We tend to think raising a child is easy and fruitful and we immediately blame the parents for anything going wrong in the child, even though that's not always true.
- The book raises again the very famous issue of nature VS nurture through a very tragic yet unluckily realistic example. It also makes us question about some laws (or the lack of them) that are causing great damage, but they're still light years away from being abolished. The work treats other issues such as lack of affection as a result of a child's misbehaviour, difficulties in discovering what is happening in a teenager's mind or questioning about how fulfilled you might feel in some aspects in your life whereas others are going terribly.
In conclusion, I found the book thought-provoking and quite gripping, despite the lack of connection between some chapters (there's indeed a large number of flashbacks). The ending was quite unexpected as well, but I have to say that in the end, I felt that information in the story is not really accurate on purpose, so that the reader can't think about the dénouement of the events. However, this is the only main pitfall I found in such a great novel, so I strongly recommend it.
Literature,
review,
USA
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