We Need to Talk About Kevin
by Lionel Shriver
★ Top 25 book of 2003 · #11 on Best Books of 2003
An international bestseller about motherhood gone awry. Eva never really wanted to be a mother, and certainly not the mother of the boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher.
Best for: Readers who can handle a dark, unsettling novel about family.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is #11 on BookWard's Best Books of 2003, out of 52 2003 books that cleared our data bar.
What We Need to Talk About Kevin is about
Eva Khatchadourian writes letters to her husband, Franklin, trying to understand how their son Kevin came to commit a school massacre at fifteen. Looking back, she describes a mother who was never sure she wanted children, who gave up her work as a writer to raise him, and who could not bond with a boy she felt disliked her. Franklin refused to see any problem. Their younger child, Celia, was the affectionate one.
The novel moves between the years before and the aftermath, in which Eva stays in her town, is shunned, and visits Kevin in prison. Lionel Shriver's 2003 book won the 2005 Orange Prize and was filmed in 2011. It is dark and unsettling, and it asks hard questions about motherhood, blame, and nature versus nurture. Readers should be ready for difficult subject matter.
We Need to Talk About Kevin on the Best Books of 2003
We Need to Talk About Kevin came out in 2003. Of the 52 books first published in 2003 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #11 on our Best Books of 2003 list.
Why it made the list: 397 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.2 out of 5 (26 ratings); 22 are reading it right now. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
Nearby on the 2003 list
- The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger, #9
- How to Train Your Dragon Cressida Cowell, #10
- The Devil in the White City Erik Larson, #12
- Thomas and Friends Reverend W. Awdry, #13
See all Best Books of 2003 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2002 Best Books of 2004.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 329 want to read it, 22 are reading it now and 46 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 4.2 out of 5 from 26 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 73 | 55% |
| Reader love | 65 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 67 | 20% |
Questions about We Need to Talk About Kevin
When was We Need to Talk About Kevin published?
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver was first published in 2003.
Was We Need to Talk About Kevin one of the best books of 2003?
We Need to Talk About Kevin is #11 on BookWard's Best Books of 2003, out of 52 2003 books that cleared our data bar. 397 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.2 out of 5 (26 ratings); 22 are reading it right now.
Why is We Need to Talk About Kevin on the Best Books of 2003 list?
397 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.2 out of 5 (26 ratings); 22 are reading it right now.
More of the best books of 2003
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J. K. Rowling, #1
- Into the Wild Erin Hunter, #2
- The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini, #3
- Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Mo Willems, #4
- A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson, #5
- The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown, #6
See the full Best Books of 2003, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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