I just finished reading a horrible novel. I couldn't put it down.

Much of my world revolves around children: my children, children's issues, people who have children, people who want children, children who need families, all things Elmo, car seats, sticky fingerprints, highchairs, poopy diapers, haircuts, fish heads, and so on.

Illustrated by the fact that I blog here for AdoptionBlogs.com, and read where I write, the prevalent POV in the bubble I inhabit is family focused. There's a kindness in my bubble, lots of warm fuzzies, soft, welcoming laps, hugs and kisses. The outside world is cast in an opalescent glow of tenderness, as the walls of my bubble color most of what I see: happily-ever-afters are possible, love conquers all, and good things happen to good people.

I like my bubble. I like it so much that I go for periods of time forgetting ... okay, ignoring ... ugliness, hate, selfishness, and other less than attractive aspects of humanity. I keep the news turned off and the view of the sea and the islands and the forest and the stars and my kids' smiles in the center of my personal periscope.

And then I read, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver.

Shortly before his sixteenth birthday, Kevin Khatchadourian kills seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria
worker and a teacher. He is visited in prison by his mother, Eve, who narrates in a series of letters to her estranged husband, Franklin, her account of Kevin's upbringing.

A stark reminder that the real world would be better if some people never became parents and some children were never born.

Here’s how the Boston Globe put it:

Sometimes searing … brutally honest …There are no answers here, no pat explanations. Shriver doesn’t take an easy way out by blaming the parents. Instead, the novel holds a mirror up to a whole culture…

And here’s a take I could never have imagined:

[A] fascinating, painful meditation on motherhood-as-regret.
(Time Out, New York)

It’s going to take a while to get my bubble back in shape.

I think I'll reread something cheery ... Tolstoy, perhaps?