Looking back on events, it seems that everyone is against her and her apparent honesty and willingness to accept fault makes her appear both very human and deserving of the reader's sympathy and trust. What gives this book so much of its strength is that it is told only from the point of view of Eva in her letters to Franklin. Eva struggles to answer the one great unanswered question about the spate of school killings that happened in the US in the late 1990s - of which Columbine is only the most well known - why?. The story of Kevin, from before he is born to that tragic Thursday when he murders several classmates and a teacher in a 'Columbine'-style killing is told in a series of letters from his mother, Eva, written to her apparently estranged husband, Franklin. There are no clear answers and that's what gives this brave book, which tackles the taboos that some mothers don't bond with their children, such power. Politicians continue to argue that the solution to social issues lies with the family, so it is timely that at the heart of Lionel Shriver's 2005 Orange Prize winning novel is the issue of nature vs nurture - what makes a person like he or she is? Is the eponymous Kevin born evil or is he influenced by his mother's coldness towards him. Controversially tackling the taboo of mothers who don't bond with their children, this is a 'must read' book.Ī Times Educational Supplement Teachers' Top 100 Book Summary: A brave and thought-provoking book dealing with the eternal nature vs nurture debate and our need to apportion blame for terrible events.
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