5 out of 5 stars
On Amazon (universal link)
On Goodreads
How I discovered this book: Watched the film for the first time a few years back.
In a Nutshell: Can a child be born evil?
This film popped into my head recently and I watched it again, then decided, on impulse, to get the book too. You'll probably have heard about it - it's about Eva, happily married to Franklin, deciding to start a family. Throughout the pregnancy she's not sure if she's done the right thing, and from the moment Kevin is born she does not bond with him at all. From when he's a toddler, she begins to believe that he either hates her, or was born evil. Events pile up, over the years, until just before his sixteenth birthday when he instigates catastrophe.
The book is written in the form of Eva's letters to Franklin, after the life-changing events of April 8th, 1999. It's hard to say how much I would have understood about what she insinuates had I not seen the film, though some of the outcome is made clear from the beginning. Some reviews have criticised this, but there is more to find out right at the end, if you haven't seen the film. The unfolding of the family's life after Kevin's birth, in her letters, is truly shocking.
It's an unusual structure and format, being written partly in the second person, but for me it totally worked, and I was engrossed throughout. Highly recommended (and in answer to the book club question examples at the end, yes, I think he was born evil and no, I don't think any of it was Eva's fault!).
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