We Need To Talk About Kevin: A Novel by Lionel Shriver

Here is the book on Amazon.

I picked up this book because it was highly recommended by my hometown library and was listed as a "young adult pick". I liked the book but I will say it right now: I don't feel that this book is appropriate for young adults in a school setting. Not even a little bit.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is a very introspective read. It stayed with me long after putting the book down. It is disturbing and still manages to avoid unnecessary gore. It is an intellectual read that really tackles some intense moral issues, including the question of who is responsible for the actions of a young killer?

The story centers around a young man named Kevin, but we learn about him through letters his mother sends to his father. We learn about the family dynamic through the letters and the history spans Kevin's entire life, from conception to prison, where we find him at the end of the novel.

As an adult, I appreciated this book but in no way do I feel that it is appropriate for students to read in a classroom setting. A primary focus of the novel is school violence and the effects it has on students, staff, parents and the one committing the crime. While I feel students should be educated about violence like this, I don't think this book is the right way to do that. As a teacher, I wouldn't recommend this book to my students because I wouldn't feel comfortable with that.

This book was in the young adult section of the library I was in, but it is not listed as a young adult book according to the Library of Congress. Because of these reasons I wouldn't read this book in class, but I think it's a book worth reading.