We Need to Talk About Kevin

Photo: Jesus Ayala/ Studio D

3 of 5
We Need to Talk About Kevin
432 pages; Harper Perennial
Shriver's haunting novel is not quite horror and not quite thriller, "but it's definitely dramatic," Lawrence says. A mother's story of watching helplessly as her son grows from an angry child into a horrifically violent young man, the book won 2005's Orange Prize for fiction and inspired the recent movie starring Tilda Swinton. "I wouldn't read it if I had kids or if I were pregnant," she warns.