'Shortly before his sixteenth birthday, Kevin Khatchadourian kills seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher. He is visited in prison by his mother, Eva, who narrates in a series of letters to her estranged husband, Franklin, the story of Kevin's upbringing. For this powerful, shocking novel, Lionel Shriver was awarded the Orange Prize for Fiction.'
I have been meaning to read this book for a while, since sixth form to be exact, which was about four years ago. I was given the book as a goodbye-your-going-to-uni present from my A-level teachers at the time, who gave everyone in the class a different book to keep. One of my English Literature teachers said that this was one of her favourite books and that I would enjoy it because I was very into psychology at the time.
The book has also been made into a film and stars Ezra Miller (who plays Patrick in 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower') as the main character Kevin Khatchadourian. I am rather intrigued to see Miller play a different role as I have only seen him in 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower.'
I really can't wait to read this book as I have always been interested in criminal psychology and have recently watched a documentary on the Columbine high-school massacre which took place in Columbine, Colorado in 1999. Although the book deals with a rather sensitive issue, by offering the narrative from Eva's point of view Shriver can allow us to attempt to understand Kevin's childhood and question whether his psychopathic actions were rooted in childhood (nurture) or in his very being (nature).
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