Journal Entry 1 by msjoanna from Columbia, Missouri USA on Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Received from Paperback Swap. I've been wanting to read this for a while.

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From Publishers Weekly
A number of fictional attempts have been made to portray what might lead a teenager to kill a number of schoolmates or teachers, Columbine style, but Shriver's is the most triumphantly accomplished by far. A gifted journalist as well as the author of seven novels, she brings to her story a keen understanding of the intricacies of marital and parental relationships as well as a narrative pace that is both compelling and thoughtful. Eva Khatchadourian is a smart, skeptical New Yorker whose impulsive marriage to Franklin, a much more conventional person, bears fruit, to her surprise and confessed disquiet, in baby Kevin. From the start Eva is ambivalent about him, never sure if she really wanted a child, and he is balefully hostile toward her; only good-old-boy Franklin, hoping for the best, manages to overlook his son's faults as he grows older, a largely silent, cynical, often malevolent child. The later birth of a sister who is his opposite in every way, deeply affectionate and fragile, does nothing to help, and Eva always suspects his role in an accident that befalls little Celia. The narrative, which leads with quickening and horrifying inevitability to the moment when Kevin massacres seven of his schoolmates and a teacher at his upstate New York high school, is told as a series of letters from Eva to an apparently estranged Franklin, after Kevin has been put in a prison for juvenile offenders. This seems a gimmicky way to tell the story, but is in fact surprisingly effective in its picture of an affectionate couple who are poles apart, and enables Shriver to pull off a huge and crushing shock far into her tale. It's a harrowing, psychologically astute, sometimes even darkly humorous novel, with a clear-eyed, hard-won ending and a tough-minded sense of the difficult, often painful human enterprise.
 

Journal Entry 2 by msjoanna from Columbia, Missouri USA on Thursday, September 18, 2008

Wow! This was a dark book. I could tell where it was leading as I was reading it, but that didn't stop be from feeling punched in the gut by the ending. It's a book that I'm sort of glad that I read, but part of me wishes I hadn't. I'll be interested to see what other readers think of this one.

It's now in the mail to Marlene. 

Journal Entry 3 by CrazyDutchwoman from Heemstede, Noord-Holland Netherlands on Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Thank you Joanna. It arrived just now.
When I read what it is about I'd think this is a book I would love but reading the first pages it also seems like a very hard book to read.
You also say it is dark. Well I've read some dark books (Oprah's Book clubs) and I liked them. Only problem is trying to get into them, once I am starting to get into the story mostly I can't stop reading.
I will let you know my thoughts once I've read it. Will be a while cause I have a lot of TBR's at the moment. :) . 

Journal Entry 4 by CrazyDutchwoman from Heemstede, Noord-Holland Netherlands on Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Hi Joanna. Just wanted to let you know I started reading this yesterday. At first I thought this book was not something I would like but I was so wrong! I cannot stop reading. The way she writes you need to stop sometimes just to think and dwell about it. I love it! :) 

Journal Entry 5 by CrazyDutchwoman from Heemstede, Noord-Holland Netherlands on Saturday, July 11, 2009

On July 8th I wrote: I am sad that I finished this book. Finished it last night and this was such a great book. It keeps you thinking and wondering. It makes you use your brains which was great.
I loved the way she used her words, sometimes I read sentences twice just because they were so beautiful and haunting. Normally I want to read a book quick cauae I have so many TBR's on my shelf but not this time.

This is a book you want to re-read. well I want to at least. Best book of 2009 so far. wow!!!