We Need to Talk About Kevin Questions

  1. What do we need to talk about when we talk about Kevin? What are the most important issues that need to be discussed?
  2. Are there similarities between the fictional Kevin and real-life mass shooters? Or is Kevin entirely different from these real-life killers?
  3. Do you like Eva? Is she a terrible mother? The more you get to know about her difficulties with Kevin, do you sympathize with her or otherwise understand her better?
  4. Is it possible to understand Kevin? Do he and Eva come to a truce at the end of the book out of mutual understanding, or is it a result of fatigue from constantly antagonizing one another?
  5. Can this book help people in real life? Or is it purely fiction?
  6. Why is the book written as an epistolary novel (a novel written in letters)? How do you get to know Eva through her letters? How would the book be different if a more traditional narrative style were used? What are the drawbacks to the epistolary style?
  7. How is the film different than the book? Why do you think the director, Lynne Ramsay, made the changes she did to the story?
  8. Is the book still relevant in the present day, whenever you are reading it?