Top Five Books of 2011

It's that time of year folks! The weather is getting colder, the silly animal hats are coming out, the Christmas shopping has begun, the lights are going up on Oxford Street, the cheesy adverts have started on TV, and people have started to debate what to buy for each of their friends and family and how they are going to fit into those tight trousers after just a few too many mince pies.

But one of the images most synonymous with the holiday season is that of you getting all curled up in that new jumper grandma bought you, by a warm fire (or more often than not - a radiator!) with a hot chocolate and tucking into a great book.

So as we reach the end of 2011, I wanted to share with you my favourite reads from this year. Admittedly, not all of these five were released this year but they were still new to me so I'm allowing it!

What have you enjoyed reading in 2011? Let me know in the comments below... and seasons greetings!

 

5. Dani's Story by Diane and Bernie Lierow with Kay West 

A gripping, heartwarming and horrifying non-fiction must-read about a severely neglected young girl who finds hope with a new family.

   

 

4. My Sweet Saga by Brett Sills 

A hilarious American romp with a brilliantly flawed male lead who will take you across the world on his crazy antics and snorting with laughter throughout.

  
 

3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

A look at 1960s America amidst the race riots and what it was like for the black maids to work for a white family.

  
 

2. Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

The follow up book by incredibly talented author Rosamund Lupton looks at the aftermath of a school fire with emotional and heart-wrenching honesty. Combines crime thriller with family drama brilliantly, and even adds a ghostly twist. 

 

1. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Schriver
A masterpiece of modern literature which, through a series of letters written to her absent husband, explores life for Eva after her teenage son is put in jail for killing his classmates. 

  
 

We Need to Talk About Kevin: Book vs Film

We Need to Talk About Kevin is based on the book by Lionel Schriver which, through a series of detailed letters, looks at life through Eva Khatchadourian's eyes as she deals with the aftermath of a school shooting where her teenage son Kevin was the shooter. Through writing to her now absent husband (and Kevin's father) Franklin, she considers who is at fault for Kevin's actions on that Thursday. Is it all her fault? Was the lack of motherly affection to blame? Or was Kevin simply born evil?

Directed by relative newcomer Lynne Ramsay, the film adaptation has won numerous 5* critic ratings, was dubbed Best Film at the London Film Festival and has received praise from audiences the world over. It has been dubbed the film of Tilda Swinton's career and even the poster has a quote from the book's author Lionel Schriver saying "A brilliant adaptation of my novel". This is a lot of hype to live up to when the film has only been out for a week. So does it live up to the hype?

Well yes and no...

All the acting is flawless. Tilda Swinton is stunning as Eva, both as the young mother struggling to connect with her son and post Thursday mother dealing with the backlash and still finding time to visit her teenage son in jail. Ezra Miller is delightfully menacing as Kevin. He manages to be both charming and sinister, capturing with apparent ease the stiff antagonistic relationship with mum Eva in perfect parallel with the easy, dutiful son to dad Franklin (John C. Reilly).

Lynne Ramsay and co have done the absolute best possible adaptation of the book. And therein lies the issue. The book does not lend itself to film adaptations. As the entire book is written in letter format, the reader takes what is said with a pinch of salt. This is, after all, Eva's perception. She insists she spotted things, warning signs so to speak, about Kevin and his behaviour which Franklin disagreed with. But, of course, this is all with hindsight. As she is writing the letters post-Thursday it is easy to see that her version of events may be slightly misleading. How much is she exaggerating or imagining something that never actually happened? You never know. This is, after all, her point of view - not Kevin's and not Franklin's. This ambiguity is what makes the book such perfect literature. Nothing is spelled out for the reader, it is all open to interpretation. In the film, there is no ambiguity. It is still Eva's point of view but with no narrator-style monologue or reference to the letter-writing style of the book, it appears more as fact than opinion.


Also, some of my favourite parts of the book were the scenes in jail where Eva and Kevin talk. The dialogue was so fantastically dry after Eva realises that asking "How are they treating you" and "Are you eating OK" just wasn't relevant any more. She dares to ask questions she couldn't before Thursday. It revealed everything and nothing about their relationship and was gripping from start to finish. I was really looking forward to seeing this on the big screen. Sadly, there is not a lot of this in the film. There are visits but normally they involve the two sitting in silence until visiting hours are over.

The horror of the final section of the book is played very subtly in the film, with flashes of memory popping into Eva's head (and onto the screen) throughout the film and focused shots on Kevin as opposed to his victims. It focuses more on the reactions of the families than the actions themselves, the repercussions of Kevin's actions and what that has meant for all involved. The constant jumps between times are easy to follow, largely thanks to Tilda Swinton's ever-changing hair cuts, and add something to the constant haze Eva is living in. Visually, the use of red lighting went a little overboard in my opinion but I can see why they thought it atmospheric and relevant to the mood of the film.

Overall, the film is beautifully shot, perfectly acted by all and a haunting look at human interaction. It has very cleverly avoided the opportunity to sensationalise the deaths and kept the focus on the characters. A great film - if you like that sort of thing.

4/5 FOBLES - film
5/5 FOBLES - book

Book Review: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Schriver

The winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005, We Need to Talk About Kevin has hit the public interest again recently thanks to the critically acclaimed film adaptation, released last week in the UK.

The book is the story of Eva Khatchadourian, whose fifteen year old son has just shot and killed people at his school and is now in jail for his crimes. She writes letters to her now absent husband, Kevin's father Franklin, which examine in great detail who is at fault for the events that took place on that fateful Thursday.

The entire book is written in letter format which makes for a challenging read but once you become accustomed to the daring style, Eva's own version of events will draw you in. At no point does she say definitively that Kevin is evil. Likewise, she never confesses that she thinks it is all her own fault. She looks instead at how things were for her as if trying to make Franklin understand why her relationship with her son has always been strained.

The book is all written in hindsight as it cuts from modern day comments about her visiting Kevin in jail and what they talked about to her memories of him throughout his life. As a baby he didn't latch and screamed non-stop whenever it was just him and Eva in the room. As a toddler she noted intellect and menace where Franklin saw a naughty child starved for affection. As he gets older, she sees things in him that makes her question his motives. She tries to have a relationship with him but it just never seems to happen.

But Eva is not the poor innocent victim in all this. While some doctors told her she probably had post-natal depression, she felt a detachment from Kevin from the start which never abated. Not a native American herself, Eva often talks about all the things she dislikes about Americans and the country they live in. This gives her an air of superiority which it seems Kevin picked up on. A successful business owner and traveller before Kevin's birth, she seems to resent the time spent at home with him. She also seems frustrated with him, even as a baby, that he is not offering her all she expected to come with parenthood - as though this is not what she signed up for.

We Need To Talk About Kevin never presumes to tell the reader what really caused Kevin to shoot his classmates. It breaks down the relationship between him and his mother into small digestible pieces and mirrors it with the relationship Eva witnessed between Franklin and Kevin. "Mr Plastic", as Kevin calls him, is the model father, always taking Kevin's side, always taking him out on day trips and listening when he speaks. To Eva though, she sees Kevin as fake only when playing the dutiful son with Franklin. With her, he is his real detached and quietly menacing self.

The final section of the book will leave you breathless as Eva recounts that day and what it was like. She recalls with precision the conversation over breakfast, the moment she found at at work that something had happened at her son's school and then details the chain of events that she has now learned happened within the school walls.

Though I fully acknowledge that this book will not be for everyone, I consider it to be fictional perfection. Schriver has taken a theme relevant to people all over the world, especially the US, and made it personal. Instead of saying outright that people are born evil or become evil due to their parents (parents of school shooting victims in the US have filed lawsuits claiming as such), she dares to examine the massive expanse of grey area between these points.

A masterpiece.

5/5 FOBLES

We Need To Talk About Kevin: Book vs film