Books like We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Eva, a high school teacher, never wanted to be a mother—especially not to the boy who would later murder seven of his fellow students, a cafeteria worker and a well‑known teacher, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Two years after the tragedy, Eva finds herself transferred to a new school and fighting to hold her life together. Through a series of direct letters with her estranged husband Franklyn, she wrestles with the sacrifices of motherhood, the social stigma of her son's crimes, and the haunting question of whether her own ambivalence toward him may have played a part in his path to violence. Set in New York’s high‑school environment, the novel examines the complex bond between mother and son, the psychological turmoil of a family shattered by mass murder, and the enduring struggle to find forgiveness and understanding amid grief and public scrutiny.

First publish date: 2003