Room

Author: Emma Donoghue
Genre: fiction
Publication info: Little, Brown and Company, 2010 (2011 paperback by Back Bay)
Pages: 321

I'm back! I'm still very behind, but I don't want to miss out on a chance to write about this remarkable book.

This novel was a bestseller in 2010, but I just now read it because I'm always a little behind the times (did you hear about that new book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?). I don't remember when I first heard about it, but when I did the idea intrigued me. I kept forgetting about it, though, until I came across it at the library and finally read it.

Unfortunately, I started reading it at the end of last semester, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. This happens to be a very engaging novel, and when you have other more important things to be engaged in, well, you're in trouble. There were a couple of days last December when I seriously could not put this book down. It's a great feeling to be engrossed in a book, but it can also lead to some serious stress later.

Room is the story of a boy named Jack who lives in a place called Room. Room is, well, a room, and it is Jack's entire world. As the story unfolds, you discover that Jack's mother, whom we know only as Ma, has been held captive by some creepy guy for seven years, and she gave birth to Jack in the same room they've been living in all this time. Room is all that Jack knows, and so it's going to take a lot of convincing for Jack to believe that there is a better world outside. And Ma needs to convince him, because she needs him to do what to him is unthinkable in order to help them escape.

This novel is the ultimate example of a naive narrator. Everything is told from Jack's point of view, present tense, with the limited vocabulary and understanding of a five-year-old whose entire world is a single room. Thankfully, the dialogue is unfiltered, but there are plenty of times where it's hard to figure out what's going on simply because he doesn't get what's going on. I thought at first that it would be annoying to have a five-year-old narrator, and it's true that sometimes Jack is irritating because of how uncooperative he is sometimes, but most of the time, it's just fascinating. Donoghue does a splendid job with imitating the language of a young child. I also really liked his perception of time: any period of waiting usually lasted "hundreds of hours" in his mind.

The book isn't meant to be a thriller; it's a story about people, and a young boy's coming to grips with the harsh reality of life. That said, there are some moments that are truly thrilling. Without giving too much away, I want to say that during the part where they attempt their escape, I could hardly breathe as I read it. The narration is so simple and straightforward, but my heart was pounding and I was totally immersed. I'm not going to tell you how it turns out, of course. You'll just have to read it for yourself.

I do recommend this book. It's simply fascinating. Although it has a claustrophobic feel to it because of its subject matter, it never gets tiring. When you get to the end, you're going to feel that you've taken quite a journey. You'll learn a lot about the psychology of kidnapping victims, and you'll learn about what it means to grow up. I'm really glad I read this book, and I hope you do too.

Just one note about the content. Even though it's told through a child's voice, it's not exactly appropriate for children, simply because of the kind of situation the characters are in. But I think the sexual issues are rather subtly and gracefully done, and it doesn't seem superfluous at all. But it's there, so just take note of that.