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To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.
Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.
Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published August 20, 2010
10475 people are currently reading
421232 people want to read
About the author
Emma Donoghue
76听books12.8k听followersGrew up in Ireland, 20s in England doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature, since then in Canada. Best known for my novel, film and play ROOM, also other contemporary and historical novels and short stories, non-fiction, theatre and middle-grade novels.
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November 9, 2010
Ever since its Booker nomination (it made the shortlist), Room by Irish writer Emma Donoghue has set the literary world on fire. Most people who review the book seem to love it. They talk about how riveting and suspenseful the book is and how they felt compelled to finish it in a single reading. I guess I鈥檒l have to be one of the few dissenting voices. I really, really, really disliked Room and yes, I do have specific reasons why.
I can鈥檛 imagine anyone not knowing the basic plot of Room, but for those who don鈥檛, the book was inspired by the true story of Elisabeth Fritzl, an Austrian woman who had been imprisoned in her father鈥檚 basement for twenty-four years, during which time he repeatedly assaulted and raped her. She eventually bore him seven children and had one miscarriage. Three of her children, one daughter and two sons had been imprisoned with their mother for the whole of their lives (until rescue).
Room takes its basic plot from the Fritzl case as well as the cases of Jaycee Lee Dugard in California and of Natascha Kampusch and Sabine Dardenne.
Room is narrated by a young boy, Jack, who has just 鈥渃elebrated鈥� his fifth birthday. Jack has never known a human being other than his mother, who he calls 鈥淢a.鈥� 鈥淢a,鈥� we come to learn, was abducted one night at age nineteen on her way to the school library. For the past seven years she鈥檚 been held captive in a garden shed fitted with soundproofed cork, lead-lined walls, and a coded metal security door and raped repeatedly by her captor, a man she calls 鈥淥ld Nick.鈥� Two years into her abduction, 鈥淢a鈥� gave birth to a son, the five-year-old Jack mentioned above.
We soon learn that 鈥淢a鈥� has tried to make life as normal and as sane as possible for Jack as one can in a room that measures 11x11. She holds 鈥淧hys Ed鈥� classes for Jack in the morning and tries to ensure that he gets some exercise. She insists that they keep to strict mealtimes. They do have a TV, and though 鈥淢a鈥� limits Jack鈥檚 TV watching just like any good parent would do, it is from TV that Jack learns about the outside world, that he learns the stories that 鈥淢a鈥� entertains him with are true ones. However, despite the fact that Jack has access to television, he really isn鈥檛 aware that anything exists outside of 鈥淩oom.鈥� Even 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� isn鈥檛 鈥渞eal鈥� to Jack because Jack鈥檚 always safe in 鈥淲ardrobe鈥� when 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� comes through 鈥淒oor.鈥� All Jack really knows about 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� is that he 鈥渂rings groceries and Sundaytreat and disappears the trash, but he's not human like us. He only happens in the night, like bats.... I think Ma doesn't like to talk about him in case he gets realer.鈥�
I have to admit, I鈥檝e never been fond of books narrated by children, but Room, for me, was especially odious. 鈥淢a鈥� has created characters out of all the objects in 鈥淩oom鈥� and Jack refers to them as though they are real, living, breathing persons. There鈥檚 鈥淲ardrobe鈥� and 鈥淩ug鈥� and 鈥淧lant鈥� and 鈥淢eltedy Spoon.鈥� One page of this is bad enough, but an entire book? It took a lot of determination for me to finish the thing. Here鈥檚 Jack describing a typical day in 鈥淩oom鈥�:
We have thousands of things to do every morning, like give Plant a cup of water in Sink for no spilling, then put her back on her saucer on Dresser.... I count one hundred cereal and waterfall the milk that鈥檚 nearly the same white as the bowls, no splashing, we thank Baby Jesus.
Waterfall the milk??????
Regarding his TV watching, Jack says:
I'd love to watch TV all the time, but it rots our brains. Before I came down from Heaven Ma left it on all day long and got turned into a zombie that's like a ghost but walks thump thump. So now she always switches off after one show, then the cells multiply again in the day and we can watch another show after dinner and grow more brains in our sleep.
And here鈥檚 Jack talking about some 鈥渜uiet time鈥� with 鈥淢a鈥�:
I get on Ma鈥檚 lap in Rocker with our legs all jumbled up. She鈥檚 the wizard transformed into a giant squid and I鈥檓 prince JackerJack and I escape in the end. We do tickles and Bouncy Bouncy and jaggedy shadows on Bed Wall.
Well, a paragraph of that here and there might have worked, but a whole half of a book? Not on your life. And this is a kid who can sing along to Eminem and Woody Guthrie music videos. He knows the latest dances. He listens to people speak on TV. His own mother, the only person with whom he converses, speaks normally. He uses words like 鈥渞appelling鈥� and 鈥渉ippopotami鈥� with ease. Heck, he even knows more about the fall of the Berlin Wall than many Germans. So what鈥檚 with the almost unintelligible baby talk? I know he鈥檚 only five, but other than his horrendous speech, he seems to be a very precocious five. And please. How many rundowns of 鈥淒ora the Explorer鈥� or 鈥淪pongebob Squarepants鈥� can one reader take without wanting to throw the book across the room?
(From here on this review will contain minor plot spoilers. Please don鈥檛 continue reading if plot spoilers will ruin the book for you.)
The story of Room is split into two parts, the first part occurring in 鈥淩oom鈥� and the second part occurring 鈥淥utside鈥� after 鈥淢a鈥� and Jack escape. The escape is, to put it mildly, totally ludicrous. For a kid who doesn鈥檛 even believe the outside world exists, to do what Jack did is beyond belief. It鈥檚 like Donoghue didn鈥檛 know what she wanted her book to be 鈥� the claustrophobic story of captivity inside a small room and how it limits the emotional and intellectual growth of a five-year-old or how a five-year-old who鈥檚 been imprisoned in an 11x11 room all his life can mature and be a hero. None of us, including Donoghue, can have it both ways.
Once we realize that Jack and 鈥淢a鈥� (we never do learn her name) are being held captive, one would think that Room would take on a sinister, suspenseful atmosphere and leave us wondering what 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� is going to do next. Instead, it鈥檚 painfully boring and slow going and almost totally lacking in suspense. Because Donoghue confines her point of view, at least in the first half of the book, to Jack, the insight we get is painfully mundane, and well, boring. When we finally reach the unbelievable 鈥渆scape鈥� from 鈥淩oom,鈥� it all feels forced and shallow and contrived.
Some people have made the remark that Donoghue captures perfectly the voice of a young child. I don鈥檛 think she does. I don鈥檛 even think she captures perfectly the voice of a young child who鈥檚 been imprisoned and cut off from the world for all of his five years of life. However, for the sake of argument, let鈥檚 just say that Donoghue does capture a five-year-old鈥檚 speech pattern perfectly. How many books written by five-year-olds do you find engrossing and enlightening? My bet is none. Five-year-olds can be cute in small doses and of course we love them and want the best for them, but let鈥檚 be truthful, they really aren鈥檛 very insightful or interesting for long periods of time, and neither is Jack.
And then, after the totally implausible 鈥渆scape鈥� from 鈥淩oom,鈥� Donoghue fails to explore, with deep insight, the ramifications of reentering a world from which one鈥檚 been absent for seven years, or in Jack鈥檚 case, a world he鈥檚 never known. I felt Donoghue glossed over this difficult transition. I felt the second half of the book lacked depth just as the first half did, though in a different way. What does 鈥淢a鈥� feel now that she鈥檚 free? Is she going to reunite with her own parents? (Her mother refused to accept 鈥淢a鈥檚鈥� seeming death, while her father needed to do so and even held a funeral for her.) Is she going to introduce them to their grandson and him to them? Being held in captivity for years, then introduced/reintroduced to the outside world is going to be traumatic for anyone, but for some mysterious reason, Donoghue doesn鈥檛 want to explore the rich store of human emotions she could have mined. There was a curious disconnect between the intense trauma 鈥淢a鈥� and Jack would have had to suffer and the blitheness with which Donoghue relates their story.
And what of the unnatural bond, truly reminiscent of that in 鈥淧sycho,鈥� formed between Jack and 鈥淢a鈥� while in 鈥淩oom?鈥� Yes, I realize that two people imprisoned together for years are going to form a deep bond, but once those people are freed, especially if they are a twenty-six year old mother and her five-year-old son, then some separation and setting of boundaries is going to be necessary in order to promote mental and emotional health. But Donoghue never explores this facet of 鈥淢a鈥檚鈥� and Jack鈥檚 captivity, though clearly, she realized it exists. At one point, Jack says of himself, 鈥淢aybe I鈥檓 a human, but I鈥檓 a me-and-Ma as well.鈥� That outlook might have served him well in 鈥淩oom鈥� but it鈥檚 a dangerous one to cultivate in 鈥淥utside.鈥�
Donoghue took a real risk with Room and I applaud her for her courage. I think this is going to be a very polarizing book 鈥� people will probably either love it or hate it. They will feel it worked wonderfully or they will feel it didn鈥檛 work at all. Obviously, for me, it didn鈥檛 work at all. I thought the premise was wonderful, but I felt Donoghue failed to deliver. I honestly can鈥檛 understand how this book even made the Booker longlist, let alone the shortlist. I expect more depth and insight from a Booker nominated work. Do I think Donoghue was a lazy storyteller with Room? I don鈥檛 know if I鈥檇 go that far, but I do think she capitalized on gimmicks and topicality, and I was very disappointed. In the end, the whole thing felt like a cheap trick to me, and after reading it, I felt like I had to go take a long, hot shower.
1/5
Recommended: No.
I can鈥檛 imagine anyone not knowing the basic plot of Room, but for those who don鈥檛, the book was inspired by the true story of Elisabeth Fritzl, an Austrian woman who had been imprisoned in her father鈥檚 basement for twenty-four years, during which time he repeatedly assaulted and raped her. She eventually bore him seven children and had one miscarriage. Three of her children, one daughter and two sons had been imprisoned with their mother for the whole of their lives (until rescue).
Room takes its basic plot from the Fritzl case as well as the cases of Jaycee Lee Dugard in California and of Natascha Kampusch and Sabine Dardenne.
Room is narrated by a young boy, Jack, who has just 鈥渃elebrated鈥� his fifth birthday. Jack has never known a human being other than his mother, who he calls 鈥淢a.鈥� 鈥淢a,鈥� we come to learn, was abducted one night at age nineteen on her way to the school library. For the past seven years she鈥檚 been held captive in a garden shed fitted with soundproofed cork, lead-lined walls, and a coded metal security door and raped repeatedly by her captor, a man she calls 鈥淥ld Nick.鈥� Two years into her abduction, 鈥淢a鈥� gave birth to a son, the five-year-old Jack mentioned above.
We soon learn that 鈥淢a鈥� has tried to make life as normal and as sane as possible for Jack as one can in a room that measures 11x11. She holds 鈥淧hys Ed鈥� classes for Jack in the morning and tries to ensure that he gets some exercise. She insists that they keep to strict mealtimes. They do have a TV, and though 鈥淢a鈥� limits Jack鈥檚 TV watching just like any good parent would do, it is from TV that Jack learns about the outside world, that he learns the stories that 鈥淢a鈥� entertains him with are true ones. However, despite the fact that Jack has access to television, he really isn鈥檛 aware that anything exists outside of 鈥淩oom.鈥� Even 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� isn鈥檛 鈥渞eal鈥� to Jack because Jack鈥檚 always safe in 鈥淲ardrobe鈥� when 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� comes through 鈥淒oor.鈥� All Jack really knows about 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� is that he 鈥渂rings groceries and Sundaytreat and disappears the trash, but he's not human like us. He only happens in the night, like bats.... I think Ma doesn't like to talk about him in case he gets realer.鈥�
I have to admit, I鈥檝e never been fond of books narrated by children, but Room, for me, was especially odious. 鈥淢a鈥� has created characters out of all the objects in 鈥淩oom鈥� and Jack refers to them as though they are real, living, breathing persons. There鈥檚 鈥淲ardrobe鈥� and 鈥淩ug鈥� and 鈥淧lant鈥� and 鈥淢eltedy Spoon.鈥� One page of this is bad enough, but an entire book? It took a lot of determination for me to finish the thing. Here鈥檚 Jack describing a typical day in 鈥淩oom鈥�:
We have thousands of things to do every morning, like give Plant a cup of water in Sink for no spilling, then put her back on her saucer on Dresser.... I count one hundred cereal and waterfall the milk that鈥檚 nearly the same white as the bowls, no splashing, we thank Baby Jesus.
Waterfall the milk??????
Regarding his TV watching, Jack says:
I'd love to watch TV all the time, but it rots our brains. Before I came down from Heaven Ma left it on all day long and got turned into a zombie that's like a ghost but walks thump thump. So now she always switches off after one show, then the cells multiply again in the day and we can watch another show after dinner and grow more brains in our sleep.
And here鈥檚 Jack talking about some 鈥渜uiet time鈥� with 鈥淢a鈥�:
I get on Ma鈥檚 lap in Rocker with our legs all jumbled up. She鈥檚 the wizard transformed into a giant squid and I鈥檓 prince JackerJack and I escape in the end. We do tickles and Bouncy Bouncy and jaggedy shadows on Bed Wall.
Well, a paragraph of that here and there might have worked, but a whole half of a book? Not on your life. And this is a kid who can sing along to Eminem and Woody Guthrie music videos. He knows the latest dances. He listens to people speak on TV. His own mother, the only person with whom he converses, speaks normally. He uses words like 鈥渞appelling鈥� and 鈥渉ippopotami鈥� with ease. Heck, he even knows more about the fall of the Berlin Wall than many Germans. So what鈥檚 with the almost unintelligible baby talk? I know he鈥檚 only five, but other than his horrendous speech, he seems to be a very precocious five. And please. How many rundowns of 鈥淒ora the Explorer鈥� or 鈥淪pongebob Squarepants鈥� can one reader take without wanting to throw the book across the room?
(From here on this review will contain minor plot spoilers. Please don鈥檛 continue reading if plot spoilers will ruin the book for you.)
The story of Room is split into two parts, the first part occurring in 鈥淩oom鈥� and the second part occurring 鈥淥utside鈥� after 鈥淢a鈥� and Jack escape. The escape is, to put it mildly, totally ludicrous. For a kid who doesn鈥檛 even believe the outside world exists, to do what Jack did is beyond belief. It鈥檚 like Donoghue didn鈥檛 know what she wanted her book to be 鈥� the claustrophobic story of captivity inside a small room and how it limits the emotional and intellectual growth of a five-year-old or how a five-year-old who鈥檚 been imprisoned in an 11x11 room all his life can mature and be a hero. None of us, including Donoghue, can have it both ways.
Once we realize that Jack and 鈥淢a鈥� (we never do learn her name) are being held captive, one would think that Room would take on a sinister, suspenseful atmosphere and leave us wondering what 鈥淥ld Nick鈥� is going to do next. Instead, it鈥檚 painfully boring and slow going and almost totally lacking in suspense. Because Donoghue confines her point of view, at least in the first half of the book, to Jack, the insight we get is painfully mundane, and well, boring. When we finally reach the unbelievable 鈥渆scape鈥� from 鈥淩oom,鈥� it all feels forced and shallow and contrived.
Some people have made the remark that Donoghue captures perfectly the voice of a young child. I don鈥檛 think she does. I don鈥檛 even think she captures perfectly the voice of a young child who鈥檚 been imprisoned and cut off from the world for all of his five years of life. However, for the sake of argument, let鈥檚 just say that Donoghue does capture a five-year-old鈥檚 speech pattern perfectly. How many books written by five-year-olds do you find engrossing and enlightening? My bet is none. Five-year-olds can be cute in small doses and of course we love them and want the best for them, but let鈥檚 be truthful, they really aren鈥檛 very insightful or interesting for long periods of time, and neither is Jack.
And then, after the totally implausible 鈥渆scape鈥� from 鈥淩oom,鈥� Donoghue fails to explore, with deep insight, the ramifications of reentering a world from which one鈥檚 been absent for seven years, or in Jack鈥檚 case, a world he鈥檚 never known. I felt Donoghue glossed over this difficult transition. I felt the second half of the book lacked depth just as the first half did, though in a different way. What does 鈥淢a鈥� feel now that she鈥檚 free? Is she going to reunite with her own parents? (Her mother refused to accept 鈥淢a鈥檚鈥� seeming death, while her father needed to do so and even held a funeral for her.) Is she going to introduce them to their grandson and him to them? Being held in captivity for years, then introduced/reintroduced to the outside world is going to be traumatic for anyone, but for some mysterious reason, Donoghue doesn鈥檛 want to explore the rich store of human emotions she could have mined. There was a curious disconnect between the intense trauma 鈥淢a鈥� and Jack would have had to suffer and the blitheness with which Donoghue relates their story.
And what of the unnatural bond, truly reminiscent of that in 鈥淧sycho,鈥� formed between Jack and 鈥淢a鈥� while in 鈥淩oom?鈥� Yes, I realize that two people imprisoned together for years are going to form a deep bond, but once those people are freed, especially if they are a twenty-six year old mother and her five-year-old son, then some separation and setting of boundaries is going to be necessary in order to promote mental and emotional health. But Donoghue never explores this facet of 鈥淢a鈥檚鈥� and Jack鈥檚 captivity, though clearly, she realized it exists. At one point, Jack says of himself, 鈥淢aybe I鈥檓 a human, but I鈥檓 a me-and-Ma as well.鈥� That outlook might have served him well in 鈥淩oom鈥� but it鈥檚 a dangerous one to cultivate in 鈥淥utside.鈥�
Donoghue took a real risk with Room and I applaud her for her courage. I think this is going to be a very polarizing book 鈥� people will probably either love it or hate it. They will feel it worked wonderfully or they will feel it didn鈥檛 work at all. Obviously, for me, it didn鈥檛 work at all. I thought the premise was wonderful, but I felt Donoghue failed to deliver. I honestly can鈥檛 understand how this book even made the Booker longlist, let alone the shortlist. I expect more depth and insight from a Booker nominated work. Do I think Donoghue was a lazy storyteller with Room? I don鈥檛 know if I鈥檇 go that far, but I do think she capitalized on gimmicks and topicality, and I was very disappointed. In the end, the whole thing felt like a cheap trick to me, and after reading it, I felt like I had to go take a long, hot shower.
1/5
Recommended: No.
March 21, 2011
I was all ready to hate this book. Doesn't it sound obnoxious? An adult novel about harrowing things, but narrated by a 5-year-old? Mere gimmickry, right, a showy writing experiment, likely to win praise from the easily impressed.
But I don't think I am that easily impressed, and damn, this book is kind of a stunner. Because yes, if not handled exactly right, a book narrated by a child probably would be obnoxious. I haven't read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close yet, and I might or might not like it, but I already know that it is written in the voice of a precocious 9-year-old, and precocious kids usually are pretty annoying.
But Jack, the narrator of Room, is not really precocious, and Emma Donoghue has managed to capture a realistic child's voice without turning out a book that's overly simplistic or too calculated. And I really don't know how she did it.
As you begin reading this story of a boy who has spent his entire life locked in one small room, the son of the unfortunate Ma (who is never named, because she's Ma), who was kidnapped and has been kept in the room for the last seven years, it does seem too cute: all the objects in Room are proper nouns with genders, like Floor and Bed and Duvet and Wardrobe, which kind of makes sense because to Jack, they are the only onlys of those things in the world, because the whole world is Room (he has a TV, which he thinks shows make-believe things that live on planets inside the TV). But I kept reading, and there's really remarkable depth to the story even though such a limited narrative scope.
What really grabbed me is the way the book perfectly captures the malleability of a kid's mind, the way they take what they know and use it as a filter to interpret the stuff they encounter that they don't understand. I once read something by Stephen King that posited that all children are more or less clinically insane until about age seven, when those parts of their brain firm up and they stop coming up with ideas like, "oh it got dark because a giant monster ate the sun." And of course, Emma Donoghue knows that we are not 5-year-olds, and she somehow manages to weave in all these staggeringly sad truths about the world, and growing up, and our relationships with our parents, and how fleeting time and relationships can be, all into the voice of this little boy who doesn't even realize what he's saying, but it doesn't feel crammed in, or like a cheat (the MagicalNegro 5-Year-Old).
I didn't say anything about the plot because I think it really helps to not know much beyond the premise going in (and it's one of those books I would really like to have read knowing absolutely nothing at all, but such is life). And yes, it's more of a heart book than a head book, but I don't think it is bad that sometimes books try to engage us in different ways. And certainly there's room, with this premise, for a different kind of book, almost a social satire, but that's not what we have here, and it's still quite an experience.
But I don't think I am that easily impressed, and damn, this book is kind of a stunner. Because yes, if not handled exactly right, a book narrated by a child probably would be obnoxious. I haven't read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close yet, and I might or might not like it, but I already know that it is written in the voice of a precocious 9-year-old, and precocious kids usually are pretty annoying.
But Jack, the narrator of Room, is not really precocious, and Emma Donoghue has managed to capture a realistic child's voice without turning out a book that's overly simplistic or too calculated. And I really don't know how she did it.
As you begin reading this story of a boy who has spent his entire life locked in one small room, the son of the unfortunate Ma (who is never named, because she's Ma), who was kidnapped and has been kept in the room for the last seven years, it does seem too cute: all the objects in Room are proper nouns with genders, like Floor and Bed and Duvet and Wardrobe, which kind of makes sense because to Jack, they are the only onlys of those things in the world, because the whole world is Room (he has a TV, which he thinks shows make-believe things that live on planets inside the TV). But I kept reading, and there's really remarkable depth to the story even though such a limited narrative scope.
What really grabbed me is the way the book perfectly captures the malleability of a kid's mind, the way they take what they know and use it as a filter to interpret the stuff they encounter that they don't understand. I once read something by Stephen King that posited that all children are more or less clinically insane until about age seven, when those parts of their brain firm up and they stop coming up with ideas like, "oh it got dark because a giant monster ate the sun." And of course, Emma Donoghue knows that we are not 5-year-olds, and she somehow manages to weave in all these staggeringly sad truths about the world, and growing up, and our relationships with our parents, and how fleeting time and relationships can be, all into the voice of this little boy who doesn't even realize what he's saying, but it doesn't feel crammed in, or like a cheat (the Magical
I didn't say anything about the plot because I think it really helps to not know much beyond the premise going in (and it's one of those books I would really like to have read knowing absolutely nothing at all, but such is life). And yes, it's more of a heart book than a head book, but I don't think it is bad that sometimes books try to engage us in different ways. And certainly there's room, with this premise, for a different kind of book, almost a social satire, but that's not what we have here, and it's still quite an experience.
August 13, 2015
Such a gripping and emotional read! I'm glad I finally took the chance to pick this up and read it.
August 9, 2016
Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick, i can't believe i have to read this! argh. my colleague Michael (hopefully not a GR member) loaned this to me; clearly he knows that i am a "reader". but just as clearly he does not get that i like my books to have at least an edge of un-reality to them. you know, fantasy. horror. science fiction. historical fiction. and if not that, then just something, anything that moves them away from mainstream depictions of the modern real world. now Room looks like a snapshot of life right from the news. or right from my place of work! good grief, i deal with depressing enough stuff already goddamnit! reading the back cover description was like reading the label of a bottle of poison - i do not want to drink this. but fine, i respect you Michael and so i will read this one. just don't get mad if it takes me two months to get through this fucking thing.
__________
it took me over two weeks to finish the first half. i finished the second half during an afternoon and part of an evening. an amazing novel and a very emotional experience. i think i'll save writing a review for a little bit and let it sink in for a while.
__________
it's hard for me to define exactly why the first half of the novel was so hard to get through. at first i convinced myself that the child's perspective was just too "hearbreakingly poignant", and i am not the kind of person who is enthusiastic about reading works of heartbreaking poignance. but that is patently false; i love those kinds of books although i would never admit it openly. well, i'd say it in a GR review, but i would never say that out loud, if that makes sense. perhaps i'm a hypocrite that way. so then i convinced myself that there was just something wrong with the narrator's voice, something off, he just seemed - at different points - to be either too precocious or too simple for a child his age. i compared him a lot to my nephews, and it didn't gel - his thought process did not parallel their thought process. but then i thought about this kid's situation, the extreme sort of home-schooling he received, the protective wall that his amazing mom built for him, the way he interpreted the world...and it made sense, a whole lot of sense. his voice turned out to be a very real one for me, at least based upon my understanding of his young life.
and so i realized that the reason i was avoiding coming back to Room's first half was more basic, more simple. it made me want to cry, all the time. perhaps i'm too soft, maybe i just have too thin a skin. it's not like i have any illusions about kids - they are not saints to me, nor are they just tiny adults. i'm comfortable around children and i prefer them to many adults i've met, but i don't idealize them either. however i do have a big natural urge to protect them. i'm not sure where that comes from; i don't think it's based on genetics or upbringing. and so it was just really hard to return again and again to a novel that had as its central situation the kind of thing that i try actively to never contemplate. as in, i'll turn the channel or put down the paper if i come across a story like this one. to be honest, each time i read a few lines of the first half, my eyes would well up a little, that shortness of breath thing happened - and often in public, on the bus, at a coffeeshop, reading at a lunch spot. the private world of this novel became a public experience to me. i avoided this book at first because i do not like to appear weak - to the world around me, or to myself.
i told the guy who loaned me the book about my issues and was given some advice: just stick with it, it will open up and it will be beautiful. and so i did. and the book did. it was good advice.
the first half of the book was beautiful as well. wonderfully written. but thank God, the second half really did open up. it was like taking a breath of wonderful, clean air, somewhere in nature, away from the city. the humor remained but it was transformed into something wry, something that was still poignant but with a sheen of sardonic humor that i appreciated (and, truth be told, perhaps had a level of distance to it that i rather lazily connected to as well). the anger i felt in the first half towards Old Nick was inchoate - the kind of blind rage that i feel towards anyone who'd harm a child. the anger i felt in the second half was of a kind that is more comfortable, more familiar - towards the media, towards pop psychology, towards various institutions and the like. the second half had lessons to be learned - lessons about perception and isolation and materialism and the family bond and the bond between mother & son, protector & protected. the simple fact of "lessons to be learned" made the second half so much easier to read, it made the narrative positively propulsive in my desire to learn what was going to happen next. the horribly (and needfully) static nature of the book's first half was replaced by an emotional dynamism that really grabbed me. again, this is not a critique of the first half, which i think was perfectly written. instead, it is a critique of my own ability to deal with challenging, terrifying situations involving kids - since i couldn't do anything to stop or even hurt Old Nick, i wanted only to look away. and so the second half turned out to be more of a familiar road, with familiar pleasures. the first half of the book was horribly unique and my mind balked. the second half eased me back into a world i could deal with, respond to, and not shut down. at the end of the second half, the end of the novel itself, i read those last few sentences over and again, closed the book, and cried. such a relief. it's funny to think of all the tears i had saved up.
__________
it took me over two weeks to finish the first half. i finished the second half during an afternoon and part of an evening. an amazing novel and a very emotional experience. i think i'll save writing a review for a little bit and let it sink in for a while.
__________
it's hard for me to define exactly why the first half of the novel was so hard to get through. at first i convinced myself that the child's perspective was just too "hearbreakingly poignant", and i am not the kind of person who is enthusiastic about reading works of heartbreaking poignance. but that is patently false; i love those kinds of books although i would never admit it openly. well, i'd say it in a GR review, but i would never say that out loud, if that makes sense. perhaps i'm a hypocrite that way. so then i convinced myself that there was just something wrong with the narrator's voice, something off, he just seemed - at different points - to be either too precocious or too simple for a child his age. i compared him a lot to my nephews, and it didn't gel - his thought process did not parallel their thought process. but then i thought about this kid's situation, the extreme sort of home-schooling he received, the protective wall that his amazing mom built for him, the way he interpreted the world...and it made sense, a whole lot of sense. his voice turned out to be a very real one for me, at least based upon my understanding of his young life.
and so i realized that the reason i was avoiding coming back to Room's first half was more basic, more simple. it made me want to cry, all the time. perhaps i'm too soft, maybe i just have too thin a skin. it's not like i have any illusions about kids - they are not saints to me, nor are they just tiny adults. i'm comfortable around children and i prefer them to many adults i've met, but i don't idealize them either. however i do have a big natural urge to protect them. i'm not sure where that comes from; i don't think it's based on genetics or upbringing. and so it was just really hard to return again and again to a novel that had as its central situation the kind of thing that i try actively to never contemplate. as in, i'll turn the channel or put down the paper if i come across a story like this one. to be honest, each time i read a few lines of the first half, my eyes would well up a little, that shortness of breath thing happened - and often in public, on the bus, at a coffeeshop, reading at a lunch spot. the private world of this novel became a public experience to me. i avoided this book at first because i do not like to appear weak - to the world around me, or to myself.
i told the guy who loaned me the book about my issues and was given some advice: just stick with it, it will open up and it will be beautiful. and so i did. and the book did. it was good advice.
the first half of the book was beautiful as well. wonderfully written. but thank God, the second half really did open up. it was like taking a breath of wonderful, clean air, somewhere in nature, away from the city. the humor remained but it was transformed into something wry, something that was still poignant but with a sheen of sardonic humor that i appreciated (and, truth be told, perhaps had a level of distance to it that i rather lazily connected to as well). the anger i felt in the first half towards Old Nick was inchoate - the kind of blind rage that i feel towards anyone who'd harm a child. the anger i felt in the second half was of a kind that is more comfortable, more familiar - towards the media, towards pop psychology, towards various institutions and the like. the second half had lessons to be learned - lessons about perception and isolation and materialism and the family bond and the bond between mother & son, protector & protected. the simple fact of "lessons to be learned" made the second half so much easier to read, it made the narrative positively propulsive in my desire to learn what was going to happen next. the horribly (and needfully) static nature of the book's first half was replaced by an emotional dynamism that really grabbed me. again, this is not a critique of the first half, which i think was perfectly written. instead, it is a critique of my own ability to deal with challenging, terrifying situations involving kids - since i couldn't do anything to stop or even hurt Old Nick, i wanted only to look away. and so the second half turned out to be more of a familiar road, with familiar pleasures. the first half of the book was horribly unique and my mind balked. the second half eased me back into a world i could deal with, respond to, and not shut down. at the end of the second half, the end of the novel itself, i read those last few sentences over and again, closed the book, and cried. such a relief. it's funny to think of all the tears i had saved up.
November 17, 2015
This book was awful. Emotionless. Annoying.
Look, I get it, it's quite difficult to write from the perspective of a 5-year old as a grown up. I can hardly remember what it was like being five, and I can't even begin to write from the POV of one. I do, however, know an enjoyable story when I see it, and I know when I'm annoyed. And I know that this book annoyed me greatly.
The hallmark of any brilliant novel is the ability to make the reader empathize for the characters in the book. I want to be able to understand and experience the joy, suffering, frustration, anger, whatever it is that the main characters and the main narrators feel. I got none of that here, due in part to the emotional immaturity and lack of comprehension on the very young main characters' part, and in part due to my frustration and annoyance at the five year old narrator.
The little boy's is haphazard, almost a stream of consciousness narration.
Maybe this kid is annoying because he doesn't know anything outside Room. Maybe he's immature because of his seclusion. Maybe this. Maybe that. I don't want to have to make excuses for the book's shortcomings.
This book takes place in a room. Have you ever been locked up for an entire day in a room (without a computer or an iPhone for company?) It is as boring as it sounds, and this book is as boring as it sounds. But it's not boring because the mom has the kid and they love each other! That makes it awesome, right? Not for me.
I have a little sister. She's 10 years younger than I am. Consequently, I had to put up with a hell of a lot of little kids growing up. They were intelligent, bright, precocious. I still couldn't stand their company. This book was hell.
The story of Ma is pretty awful, because she's been kidnapped and raped and locked up. We got no sense of that. There is no emotion, there is no horror, there is no knowing what happened to her because the story is told from the perspective of a stupid little child. The choice of the narrator completely ruins what should have been a heart-wrenching tale.
Look, I get it, it's quite difficult to write from the perspective of a 5-year old as a grown up. I can hardly remember what it was like being five, and I can't even begin to write from the POV of one. I do, however, know an enjoyable story when I see it, and I know when I'm annoyed. And I know that this book annoyed me greatly.
The hallmark of any brilliant novel is the ability to make the reader empathize for the characters in the book. I want to be able to understand and experience the joy, suffering, frustration, anger, whatever it is that the main characters and the main narrators feel. I got none of that here, due in part to the emotional immaturity and lack of comprehension on the very young main characters' part, and in part due to my frustration and annoyance at the five year old narrator.
The little boy's is haphazard, almost a stream of consciousness narration.
I choose Meltedy Spoon with the white all blobby on his handle when he leaned on the pan of boiling pasta by accident. Ma doesn鈥檛 like Meltedy Spoon but he鈥檚 my favorite because he鈥檚 not the same.And I have to tell you, it is annoying as fuck. In that sense, maybe the book is fairly true to the depiction of kids, because to be honest, a lot of kids are pretty damn annoying to me.
Maybe this kid is annoying because he doesn't know anything outside Room. Maybe he's immature because of his seclusion. Maybe this. Maybe that. I don't want to have to make excuses for the book's shortcomings.
This book takes place in a room. Have you ever been locked up for an entire day in a room (without a computer or an iPhone for company?) It is as boring as it sounds, and this book is as boring as it sounds. But it's not boring because the mom has the kid and they love each other! That makes it awesome, right? Not for me.
I have a little sister. She's 10 years younger than I am. Consequently, I had to put up with a hell of a lot of little kids growing up. They were intelligent, bright, precocious. I still couldn't stand their company. This book was hell.
The story of Ma is pretty awful, because she's been kidnapped and raped and locked up. We got no sense of that. There is no emotion, there is no horror, there is no knowing what happened to her because the story is told from the perspective of a stupid little child. The choice of the narrator completely ruins what should have been a heart-wrenching tale.
October 25, 2023
What makes up the world to five-year-old Jack, our window into life in Room? His mother for sure, a loving, very engaged 24/7 presence. Old Nick is an occasional visitor, although only glimpsed through the almost-closed doors of a wardrobe. A skylight allows Jack and Ma to see the sun, and sometimes the moon. A television offers a view on Outside, the world beyond Room. Jack and his 26-year-old mother get through their days with a strict schedule, a rich imaginative life and absolute love for each other. They need all those things. Jack has never seen the outside of their eleven-foot-square room. His mother has been held prisoner by a madman for seven years.
Emma Donoghue - image from her site
One might think that it would be a strain to read an entire adult novel in the voice of such a young child. I felt trepidatious for a while, myself. But once I got used to the norms of Jack鈥檚 speech, the rest just flowed. A child and mother held prisoner for so long is nothing less than a horror story. It was uncomfortable to read, and reminded me of the feelings summoned by some of Stephen King鈥檚 scarier efforts. But Room is not just a tale of terror, of captivity and isolation. It delves into larger issues, particularly in the latter chapters. What is real? What is just an image seen on a TV screen? Are we better off, in some ways, to live in a world that has everything defined, ordered, secure, than having to cope with actual reality? Where does one draw that line?
Room was inspired, at least in part, by actual, disturbing, events. In Austria, a young woman, Elizabeth Fritzl, was imprisoned for 24 years by her serial-rapist father, bearing him seven children. One of those died as a result of the evil father refusing to seek medical treatment for him. There are echoes of that event here. But while a real-life horror story may have been a basis for the book, Room is not a downer. It offers both the dark excitement of a scary story and a thoughtful look at what defines us as people. In contrast to the monstrous, Donaghue gives us an inspirational, loving parent in the same vein as Roberto Benigni鈥檚 Guido Orefice from It鈥檚 a Beautiful Life. Ma makes a real life for Jack.
Brie Larson as Ma and Jacob Tremblay as Jack - from the film - image from The Guardian
Donaghue offers a caustic look at contemporary media as well, presenting the media as severely truth-challenged and lacking in insight and ethics. A TV interviewer is insulting in her stupidity.
I was convinced by the voice Donaghue gave Jack, the true strength of her writing here. But I found that towards the back end of the story, Jack started sounding much too grown-up, and was clearly serving as the author鈥檚 avatar. But for the vast majority of her book, Donaghue carries it off, amazingly.
The story is compelling, the writing creative and effective. If you don鈥檛 make room for Room on your reading list, you won鈥檛 know Jack, and that would be a shame.
==============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to Donoghue's , , and pages
7/3/13 - I happened across Oprah selecting Room as one of on a long flight.
Emma Donoghue - image from her site
One might think that it would be a strain to read an entire adult novel in the voice of such a young child. I felt trepidatious for a while, myself. But once I got used to the norms of Jack鈥檚 speech, the rest just flowed. A child and mother held prisoner for so long is nothing less than a horror story. It was uncomfortable to read, and reminded me of the feelings summoned by some of Stephen King鈥檚 scarier efforts. But Room is not just a tale of terror, of captivity and isolation. It delves into larger issues, particularly in the latter chapters. What is real? What is just an image seen on a TV screen? Are we better off, in some ways, to live in a world that has everything defined, ordered, secure, than having to cope with actual reality? Where does one draw that line?
Room was inspired, at least in part, by actual, disturbing, events. In Austria, a young woman, Elizabeth Fritzl, was imprisoned for 24 years by her serial-rapist father, bearing him seven children. One of those died as a result of the evil father refusing to seek medical treatment for him. There are echoes of that event here. But while a real-life horror story may have been a basis for the book, Room is not a downer. It offers both the dark excitement of a scary story and a thoughtful look at what defines us as people. In contrast to the monstrous, Donaghue gives us an inspirational, loving parent in the same vein as Roberto Benigni鈥檚 Guido Orefice from It鈥檚 a Beautiful Life. Ma makes a real life for Jack.
Brie Larson as Ma and Jacob Tremblay as Jack - from the film - image from The Guardian
Donaghue offers a caustic look at contemporary media as well, presenting the media as severely truth-challenged and lacking in insight and ethics. A TV interviewer is insulting in her stupidity.
I was convinced by the voice Donaghue gave Jack, the true strength of her writing here. But I found that towards the back end of the story, Jack started sounding much too grown-up, and was clearly serving as the author鈥檚 avatar. But for the vast majority of her book, Donaghue carries it off, amazingly.
The story is compelling, the writing creative and effective. If you don鈥檛 make room for Room on your reading list, you won鈥檛 know Jack, and that would be a shame.
==============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to Donoghue's , , and pages
7/3/13 - I happened across Oprah selecting Room as one of on a long flight.
March 15, 2012
Healthy ambition is a laudable trait and I admire people willing to reach beyond their grasp in the attempt to achieve something special.
I respect the author鈥檚 choice to write a dark-themed story narrated entirely from the perspective of a five year old boy. While the unreliable narrator is nothing new in literature, its deployment here felt fresh and so I give points for that.
Unfortunately, that is about all I can give points for because the novel itself was a huge miss for me. Huge!!
Obviously, the story is intended to be an emotional ordeal with its depiction of a young woman and her 5 year old son being held captive in a garden shack (the eponymous 鈥淩oom鈥�) by a sociopath named 鈥淥ld Nick.鈥� At the beginning of the story, the woman, who was 19 when she was abducted, has been in the Room for almost 10 years. Her son, Jack, just turned 5...you can do the math regarding Jack鈥檚 paternity. Neither of them has been outside the Room in all that time.
This is dark stuff. This is uncomfortable stuff. This is a story about a horrible person doing horrible things. It should have punched me in the core and twisted me up in knots.
Yet it never affected me.
Now, if I was a cold, empathy-impaired individual, I might chalk up my lack of reaction to a simple case of 鈥渘ot my kind of story鈥� and leave it at that. However, if you鈥檝e read any of my reviews, you should have clued into the fact that I鈥檓 a deeply some would say overly emotional reader. Books move me, that鈥檚 why I read them. They make me laugh, cry, rage, exult鈥hey make me feel. Yet, despite the highly charged subject matter of the story, no more than an occasional trickle of emotion ever filtered through to me from the page.
Something was serious amiss in the delivery.
Given my blas茅 reaction to the story, I began to suspect that the use of a child narrator was nothing more than a huge gimmick designed to help distinguish a story that otherwise had very little to recommend it. I know that's not the consensus opinion, but it's honestly how I felt.
To be fair, it鈥檚 more likely that the use of Jack as the narrator, while an interesting plot device, simply presented too many serious challenges that the novel, unfortunately, was unable to successfully overcome. To the good, the author does a nice job of showing us the world of Room through the lens of Jack鈥檚 childhood perception. We learn how Jack has named and anthropomorphized every object in the room and thinks of them as his friends, and how he refers to each channel on the TV as a different planet.
Initially, this is kind of cute, but it got old and decrepit in short order.
The real problem for me was that Jack was too detached from the horror of his situation and it care-blocked the impact of the story on the reader鈥t least this reader. Children Jack鈥檚 age, while certainly able to show empathy, are generally so egocentric that any feelings of compassion for another鈥檚 pain are weak and undeveloped, being more about parroting behavior they鈥檝e learned from caregivers than a true placing of themselves 鈥渋n the shoes鈥� of the other person.
Unfortunately, this worked against my connection with the narrative. Jack鈥檚 happy-go-lucky outlook was too strong a filter between what I could tell was happening in the story and what I knew I was supposed to be feeling about it. Jack鈥檚 personal, subjective experience of his captivity is completely lacking in any sense of sadness or dread. This is because his mother does a wonderful job of sheltering him from the reality of their situation.
However, Jack also doesn鈥檛 experience feelings of discomfort about the abuse that his mother is subjected to and this subtracts a great deal from the power of these scenes. Without his own internal sense of bewilderment, confinement or pain, much of the intended poignancy was lost on me. I knew I was supposed to feel something, but I didn't.
That鈥檚 just me. If I had found the emotional tether that could have pulled me into the Room with Jack and his mother, my feelings for the book would have been much different. The writing is fine and the author鈥檚 ability to convincingly give voice to Jack was worthy of note. I just never found the necessary connection and that is a shame.
I envy those of you that loved this as I was really looking forward to reading it.
2.0 stars.
I respect the author鈥檚 choice to write a dark-themed story narrated entirely from the perspective of a five year old boy. While the unreliable narrator is nothing new in literature, its deployment here felt fresh and so I give points for that.
Unfortunately, that is about all I can give points for because the novel itself was a huge miss for me. Huge!!
Obviously, the story is intended to be an emotional ordeal with its depiction of a young woman and her 5 year old son being held captive in a garden shack (the eponymous 鈥淩oom鈥�) by a sociopath named 鈥淥ld Nick.鈥� At the beginning of the story, the woman, who was 19 when she was abducted, has been in the Room for almost 10 years. Her son, Jack, just turned 5...you can do the math regarding Jack鈥檚 paternity. Neither of them has been outside the Room in all that time.
This is dark stuff. This is uncomfortable stuff. This is a story about a horrible person doing horrible things. It should have punched me in the core and twisted me up in knots.
Yet it never affected me.
Now, if I was a cold, empathy-impaired individual, I might chalk up my lack of reaction to a simple case of 鈥渘ot my kind of story鈥� and leave it at that. However, if you鈥檝e read any of my reviews, you should have clued into the fact that I鈥檓 a deeply
Something was serious amiss in the delivery.
Given my blas茅 reaction to the story, I began to suspect that the use of a child narrator was nothing more than a huge gimmick designed to help distinguish a story that otherwise had very little to recommend it. I know that's not the consensus opinion, but it's honestly how I felt.
To be fair, it鈥檚 more likely that the use of Jack as the narrator, while an interesting plot device, simply presented too many serious challenges that the novel, unfortunately, was unable to successfully overcome. To the good, the author does a nice job of showing us the world of Room through the lens of Jack鈥檚 childhood perception. We learn how Jack has named and anthropomorphized every object in the room and thinks of them as his friends, and how he refers to each channel on the TV as a different planet.
Initially, this is kind of cute, but it got old and decrepit in short order.
The real problem for me was that Jack was too detached from the horror of his situation and it care-blocked the impact of the story on the reader鈥t least this reader. Children Jack鈥檚 age, while certainly able to show empathy, are generally so egocentric that any feelings of compassion for another鈥檚 pain are weak and undeveloped, being more about parroting behavior they鈥檝e learned from caregivers than a true placing of themselves 鈥渋n the shoes鈥� of the other person.
Unfortunately, this worked against my connection with the narrative. Jack鈥檚 happy-go-lucky outlook was too strong a filter between what I could tell was happening in the story and what I knew I was supposed to be feeling about it. Jack鈥檚 personal, subjective experience of his captivity is completely lacking in any sense of sadness or dread. This is because his mother does a wonderful job of sheltering him from the reality of their situation.
However, Jack also doesn鈥檛 experience feelings of discomfort about the abuse that his mother is subjected to and this subtracts a great deal from the power of these scenes. Without his own internal sense of bewilderment, confinement or pain, much of the intended poignancy was lost on me. I knew I was supposed to feel something, but I didn't.
That鈥檚 just me. If I had found the emotional tether that could have pulled me into the Room with Jack and his mother, my feelings for the book would have been much different. The writing is fine and the author鈥檚 ability to convincingly give voice to Jack was worthy of note. I just never found the necessary connection and that is a shame.
I envy those of you that loved this as I was really looking forward to reading it.
2.0 stars.
February 4, 2016
I've read about a lot of different crimes, in far more detail than I'd care to remember. In all the tragedies that I've read about, manmade or otherwise, no act of violence has ever made my heart wrench more than the prolonged imprisonment of a human being for sexual purposes. It's also the crime I have the most difficulty in comprehending, as I cannot imagine the amount of inhumanity it would take to capture someone and look her in the eye, day after day for years, without mercy and without pity. I still get very upset when I read about these things, even years after the events which no doubt inspired this book.
To say that I was very interested in reading this book is therefore an understatement. The subject matter and the editorial accolades made this sound like a novel that was not to be missed, and the author's other work is very well-reviewed. And in the beginning of the book, I was content enough with the developments of the story, as the reader gets to know Jack and his Ma and the Room in which they've lived for so many years.
About halfway through, however, I started to become impatient with the constraints of the format the author had chosen. Having a 5-year-old narrator became an extremely frustrating exercise, both in terms of his (understandable) unwillingness to comprehend or listen to certain things and in terms of getting a truly emotional take on the experience. I don't fault the decision to write this from a child's point of view, but I do think it would have been a deeper, more rewarding story had it been narrated from an older child's perspective--perhaps from a 10-year-old's POV. I'm not certain that the voice was entirely convincing in and of itself, either; after awhile, the tendency to name every object as if it were a proper pronoun became a little tiresome, and there are interjections of thoughts and passages that are far too mature for Jack's thought processes. Filtering this story through someone so young also meant that the reader gains far less insight into his mother's pain and his captor's background than you might hope.
The author does include convincing details of Jack's attachment to Room itself, nice moments of closeness with his Ma, and attempts to provide adult insight and terminology through overhead conversations or snippets on tv. Overall, however, this novel was a big disappointment to me. I expected to feel something for these characters--and if it could not be something profoundly deep and empathetic, I'd at least hoped for something more than simple intellectual interest and pity.
Updated 4/27/11: I've given this a lot of thought, and based on GoodReads' ratings system, I've changed my rating from a 2 to a 1. In the end, there are two things I wanted from this book: to have some degree of deeper insight into the suffering that these characters endured and to be moved by their plight. For me, this book offered neither.
To say that I was very interested in reading this book is therefore an understatement. The subject matter and the editorial accolades made this sound like a novel that was not to be missed, and the author's other work is very well-reviewed. And in the beginning of the book, I was content enough with the developments of the story, as the reader gets to know Jack and his Ma and the Room in which they've lived for so many years.
About halfway through, however, I started to become impatient with the constraints of the format the author had chosen. Having a 5-year-old narrator became an extremely frustrating exercise, both in terms of his (understandable) unwillingness to comprehend or listen to certain things and in terms of getting a truly emotional take on the experience. I don't fault the decision to write this from a child's point of view, but I do think it would have been a deeper, more rewarding story had it been narrated from an older child's perspective--perhaps from a 10-year-old's POV. I'm not certain that the voice was entirely convincing in and of itself, either; after awhile, the tendency to name every object as if it were a proper pronoun became a little tiresome, and there are interjections of thoughts and passages that are far too mature for Jack's thought processes. Filtering this story through someone so young also meant that the reader gains far less insight into his mother's pain and his captor's background than you might hope.
The author does include convincing details of Jack's attachment to Room itself, nice moments of closeness with his Ma, and attempts to provide adult insight and terminology through overhead conversations or snippets on tv. Overall, however, this novel was a big disappointment to me. I expected to feel something for these characters--and if it could not be something profoundly deep and empathetic, I'd at least hoped for something more than simple intellectual interest and pity.
Updated 4/27/11: I've given this a lot of thought, and based on GoodReads' ratings system, I've changed my rating from a 2 to a 1. In the end, there are two things I wanted from this book: to have some degree of deeper insight into the suffering that these characters endured and to be moved by their plight. For me, this book offered neither.
May 25, 2011
鈥淗ey, there Nick.鈥�
鈥淯h, hello.鈥�
鈥淣ice day for working in the yard, isn鈥檛 it?鈥�
鈥淯h, yeah. Real nice.鈥�
鈥淪ay, that is a helluva shed you鈥檙e building there.鈥�
鈥淚t's nothing special.鈥�
鈥淥h, don鈥檛 be modest, Nick. It鈥檚 a real corker. It鈥檚 even got a skylight for some natural light. What are you going to be doing in there? A little artwork?鈥�
鈥淛ust, you know, projects鈥�. and stuff.鈥�
鈥淵ou got a central AC unit for it? Plus, I see you put some furniture and a fridge in there. If you were married, I鈥檇 think you were building a man cave to get away from the old-ball-and-chain, but since you鈥檙e single, I guess you鈥檙e just planning on spending a lot of time in that shed.鈥�
鈥淯h, yeah. Gonna be out here all the time. Doing鈥tuff.鈥�
鈥淎nd just look at that steel door with the alarm pad. You鈥檙e aren鈥檛 going to have to worry about any kids breaking into that.鈥�
鈥淯h, yeah. I was worried about kids stealing my鈥�.stuff.鈥�
鈥淵ep. No way, they鈥檙e getting in there. Didn鈥檛 I see you sheeting it in some kind of metal under the siding? Hell, Nick, you could probably lock someone in there like a prison cell. Ha ha!鈥�
鈥淯h, right. That鈥檚 a 鈥unny idea.鈥�
鈥淲ell, see ya later, Nick. Swing by for a beer sometime.鈥�
7 Years Later
鈥淲ell, officer, he was kind of quiet. Always kept to himself. Still can鈥檛 believe what he did in that shed. Who could have known that鈥檚 what he was doing out there?鈥�
****
This seriously disturbing story is narrated by Jack and starts on his fifth birthday. Jack and his Ma share Room. He thinks of every object in Room like Rug or Plant or Meltdy Spoon as a friend to be treasured, and he and Ma spend every day doing their chores and playing games like Scream where they yell as loudly as they can. Jack loves his Ma and Room, but he鈥檚 scared of Old Nick who comes some nights and stays with Ma in Bed while Jack sleeps in Wardrobe.
Jack鈥檚 Ma blows his mind by telling him that she used to live Outside, and that Old Nick stole her and brought her to Room seven years ago. She has a plan for them to get out of Room, but Jack can鈥檛 believe that the things he鈥檚 seen on the fuzzy TV screen for years are real. How can there be anything but him and Ma and Room?
The premise for this book sounds like something that a Stephen King or Dean Koontz would have come up with, and it certainly works as a kind of horror novel as Jack鈥檚 innocent depiction of life inside Room shows Ma to be the victim of a horrible crime that she is trying to shield her son from. What makes this so chilling and heartbreaking is Jack鈥檚 view of the Room as the entire world, and he has so adapted to it that the very idea of real people existing outside of it is something akin to blasphemy to him.
The writing here is exceptional, and Emma Donoghue makes what could be an over-the-top plot into a character based and all too plausible story. It鈥檚 creepy and chilling and terrible and intriguing and kind of sweet. Mostly, it's all kinds of messed up.
Perhaps the most horrible thing about Room is that Old Nick doesn鈥檛 believe in providing books because there鈥檚 plenty of TV to watch, and poor Ma is stuck rereading a few paperbacks like Twilight and The DaVinci Code over and over.
It鈥檚 a fate worse than death鈥�.
鈥淯h, hello.鈥�
鈥淣ice day for working in the yard, isn鈥檛 it?鈥�
鈥淯h, yeah. Real nice.鈥�
鈥淪ay, that is a helluva shed you鈥檙e building there.鈥�
鈥淚t's nothing special.鈥�
鈥淥h, don鈥檛 be modest, Nick. It鈥檚 a real corker. It鈥檚 even got a skylight for some natural light. What are you going to be doing in there? A little artwork?鈥�
鈥淛ust, you know, projects鈥�. and stuff.鈥�
鈥淵ou got a central AC unit for it? Plus, I see you put some furniture and a fridge in there. If you were married, I鈥檇 think you were building a man cave to get away from the old-ball-and-chain, but since you鈥檙e single, I guess you鈥檙e just planning on spending a lot of time in that shed.鈥�
鈥淯h, yeah. Gonna be out here all the time. Doing鈥tuff.鈥�
鈥淎nd just look at that steel door with the alarm pad. You鈥檙e aren鈥檛 going to have to worry about any kids breaking into that.鈥�
鈥淯h, yeah. I was worried about kids stealing my鈥�.stuff.鈥�
鈥淵ep. No way, they鈥檙e getting in there. Didn鈥檛 I see you sheeting it in some kind of metal under the siding? Hell, Nick, you could probably lock someone in there like a prison cell. Ha ha!鈥�
鈥淯h, right. That鈥檚 a 鈥unny idea.鈥�
鈥淲ell, see ya later, Nick. Swing by for a beer sometime.鈥�
7 Years Later
鈥淲ell, officer, he was kind of quiet. Always kept to himself. Still can鈥檛 believe what he did in that shed. Who could have known that鈥檚 what he was doing out there?鈥�
****
This seriously disturbing story is narrated by Jack and starts on his fifth birthday. Jack and his Ma share Room. He thinks of every object in Room like Rug or Plant or Meltdy Spoon as a friend to be treasured, and he and Ma spend every day doing their chores and playing games like Scream where they yell as loudly as they can. Jack loves his Ma and Room, but he鈥檚 scared of Old Nick who comes some nights and stays with Ma in Bed while Jack sleeps in Wardrobe.
Jack鈥檚 Ma blows his mind by telling him that she used to live Outside, and that Old Nick stole her and brought her to Room seven years ago. She has a plan for them to get out of Room, but Jack can鈥檛 believe that the things he鈥檚 seen on the fuzzy TV screen for years are real. How can there be anything but him and Ma and Room?
The premise for this book sounds like something that a Stephen King or Dean Koontz would have come up with, and it certainly works as a kind of horror novel as Jack鈥檚 innocent depiction of life inside Room shows Ma to be the victim of a horrible crime that she is trying to shield her son from. What makes this so chilling and heartbreaking is Jack鈥檚 view of the Room as the entire world, and he has so adapted to it that the very idea of real people existing outside of it is something akin to blasphemy to him.
The writing here is exceptional, and Emma Donoghue makes what could be an over-the-top plot into a character based and all too plausible story. It鈥檚 creepy and chilling and terrible and intriguing and kind of sweet. Mostly, it's all kinds of messed up.
Perhaps the most horrible thing about Room is that Old Nick doesn鈥檛 believe in providing books because there鈥檚 plenty of TV to watch, and poor Ma is stuck rereading a few paperbacks like Twilight and The DaVinci Code over and over.
It鈥檚 a fate worse than death鈥�.
January 28, 2018
睾乇賮丞 : 毓賳丿賲丕 鬲乇賶 丕賱毓丕賱賲 亘毓賷賵賳 胤賮賱
賮賷 賰賱賽賾 賲賰丕賳賺 賮賷 丕賱毓丕賱賲
爻鬲噩丿 毓賷賵賳 胤賮賱賺 賲鬲爻毓丞
鬲鬲賱兀賱兀 賮賷賴丕 丕賱乇睾亘丞 賮賷 丕賱賲毓乇賮丞
賵鬲卮賲 賮賷賴 乇丕卅丨丞 丕賱禺賷丕賱
丕賱噩賲賷賱 賵丕賱賲禺鬲賱賮 賮賷 賴匕賴 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 貙賴賷 兀賳賾賴丕 賷鬲賲 爻乇丿賴丕 毓亘乇 噩丕賰 丕賱胤賮賱 丕賱氐睾賷乇
賵丕賱爻丐丕賱 賴賵 賰賷賮 賷賲賰賳 賱亘丕賱睾賺 兀賳 賷鬲丨賲賱 乇賵丕賷丞 賰丕賲賱丞
亘乇丐賷丞 貙賵亘賱睾丞 胤賮賱
賱賲 賷乇賶 囟賵亍 丕賱卮賲爻 賱爻賳賵丕鬲賴 丕賱禺賲爻責
賴賳丕 鬲賰賲賳 亘乇丕毓丞 廿賷賲丕
丕爻鬲胤丕毓鬲 兀賳 鬲亘賯賷賳丕 賲卮丿賵丿賷賳 賲毓 賴匕丕 丕賱胤賮賱 丕賱馗乇賷賮 亘賱丕 賲賱賱
亘賱 爻鬲賳丿賴卮 賱乇丐賷丞 丕賱毓丕賱賲 賲賳 禺賱丕賱 毓賷賵賳賴 丕賱賲賳丿賴卮丞
賮賴賷 賱賷爻鬲 毓賷賳丕 胤賮賱 毓丕丿賷
亘賱 胤賮賱賺 賱賲 賷毓乇賮 爻賵賶 卮賰賱 丕賱睾乇賮丞 丕賱鬲賷 毓丕卮 亘賴丕
賵賱賲 賷鬲氐賵乇 毓丕賱賲丕賸 睾賷乇賴丕
賷賯賵賱 兀賳賷爻 賲賳氐賵乇
賰賱 卮賷卅 毓賳丿 丕賱丕胤賮丕賱 賱賴 賵夭賳 貙 賱賴 賯賷賲丞 貙 賱賴 賮丕卅丿丞
賰購賱 卮賷卅 賲孬賱賴賲
胤賮賱 賲賱賷丕賳 丨賷丕丞 賵丨賲丕爻丕賸
賰賱購賾 卮賷卅 賷鬲丨丿孬 廿賱賷賴賲
賵賴賰匕丕 賱賲 兀卮毓乇 亘賯胤乇丞 賲賱賱 賵丕丨丿丞
賵兀丨亘亘鬲 噩賵 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 賰孬賷乇丕賸
丕賱賵噩賴 丕賱丌禺乇 賮賷 丕賱賯氐丞 賱賮鬲丕丞 卮丕亘丞 賷鬲賲 丕禺鬲胤丕賮賴丕 賵丕睾鬲氐丕亘賴丕 賱爻賳賵丕鬲 賮賷 睾乇賮丞 氐睾賷乇丞
賵賴賷 賵丕賱丿丞 噩丕賰 兀賵 賰賲丕 鬲丿賱賱賭賴
Prince Jackerjack
<3
賮賷 丕賱賱賷丕賱賷 丕賱鬲賷 賷賯乇乇 賮賷賴丕 賳賷賰 丕賱賲睾鬲氐亘\賵丕賱丿賴 丕賱賲亘賷鬲 賮賷 丕賱睾乇賮丞
賷賳丕賲 噩丕賰 賮賷 禺夭丕賳丞 丕賱賲賱丕亘爻
鬲丨丕賵賱 丕賱賮鬲丕丞 丕亘鬲丿丕毓 胤乇賯賺 賱賱鬲爻乇賷丞 毓賳 廿亘賳賴丕 丕賱賲爻賰賷賳
賮鬲禺鬲乇毓 兀賱毓丕亘丕賸 賯丿乇 賲丕 鬲爻鬲胤賷毓 賱鬲丿禺賱 丕賱亘賴噩丞 廿賱賶 賯賱亘賴
賰丕賱乇賰囟 賮賷 丿賵丕卅乇貙 賵丕賱賯乇丕亍丞 貙賵丕賱鬲賱賵賷賳 貙賵賲賲丕乇爻丞 丕賱乇賷丕囟丞
Everybody's damaged by something
賮賷 賴匕丕 丕賱賲乇亘毓 丕賱氐睾賷乇 賲賳 丕賱丨夭賳 賷賳賲賵 噩丕賰 貙亘匕賴賳 睾丕賮賱賺 鬲賲丕賲丕賸 毓賳 賵噩賵丿 毓丕賱賲賺 禺丕乇噩賷
賮賴賳丕賰 丕賱睾乇賮丞 貙 賵毓丕賱賲 丕賱鬲賱賮丕夭
丨鬲賶 鬲賯乇乇 兀賲賴 丕賱賴乇亘 賮鬲亘丿兀 賮賷 廿禺亘丕乇賴 毓賳 丕賱毓丕賱賲 丕賱賰亘賷乇 丕賱匕賷 賱賲 賷毓乇賮賴 賯胤
賱鬲亘丿兀 賲睾丕賲乇丞 噩丕賰 丕賱賲丿賴卮丞 賵丕賱卮購噩丕毓丞 貙賱鬲丨乇賷乇 兀賲賴 丕賱賲爻賰賷賳丞
丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 鬲鬲胤乇賯 兀賷囟丕賸 賱賲丕 賷胤乇兀 毓賱賶 丕賱賲禺胤賵賮賷賳 賲賳 鬲毓賱賾賯 亘禺丕胤賮賷賴賲
賮鬲丨丕賵賱 丕賱兀賲 丕賱丕賳鬲丨丕乇 亘毓丿 賳噩丕鬲賴丕 貙貙賵鬲卮毓乇 亘亘毓囟 丕賱丨賳賷賳 廿賱賶 禺丕胤賮賴丕
賵賷丨丕賵賱 噩丕賰 賲乇丕乇丕賸 丕賱毓賵丿丞 廿賱賶 丕賱睾乇賮丞 丕賱氐睾賷乇丞 丕賱鬲賷 兀賱賮賴丕
禺賵賮丕賸 賲賳 丕賱毓丕賱賲 丕賱禺丕乇噩賷 丕賱賰亘賷乇 噩丿丕賸 亘丕賱賳爻亘丞 廿賱賷賴
The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute
賵卮賷卅丕賸 賮卮賷卅丕賸 賷毓鬲丕丿 丕賱廿孬賳丕賳 毓賱賶 丕賱毓丕賱賲 丕賱賲噩賳賵賳 賵丕賱賵丕爻毓 賲賳 噩丿賷丿
賮賷 丕賱丨賯賷賯丞 兀賲鬲毓賳賷 噩丕賰 賰孬賷乇丕賸 亘丨賵丕乇丕鬲賴 賲毓 兀賲賴
匕賰賷丞 賵亘乇賷卅丞 賵賲囟丨賰丞
賱賲 兀鬲禺賷賱 兀賳 鬲毓噩亘賳賷 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 亘賴匕賴 丕賱胤乇賷賯丞
賵賱賰賳 丕賱胤賮賱 賷毓胤賷賰 丿乇賵爻丕賸 賱匕賷匕丞 賮賷 丕賱丨賷丕丞
賵賷噩毓賱賰 鬲乇賶 丕賱兀卮賷丕亍 賲賳 丨賵賱賰 亘賳馗乇丞 賲禺鬲賱賮丞
賱賲 兀卮毓乇 亘丕賱賲賱賱 賲毓 賱睾鬲賴 丕賱胤賮賱丞 丕賱馗乇賷賮丞 亘賱 賰賳鬲 賲亘鬲爻賲丞 賲毓馗賲 丕賱賵賯鬲 丨鬲賾賶 賲毓 賱丨馗丕鬲 丕賱丨夭賳 賵丕賱賯賱賯 賵丕賱鬲卮賵賯 賱賲毓乇賮丞 賲氐賷乇賴 賵兀賲賴
November 17, 2021
Room, Emma Donoghue
Jack lives with his Ma in Room, a secured single-room outbuilding containing a small kitchen, a basic bathroom, a wardrobe, a bed, and a TV set.
Because it is all he has ever known, Jack believes that only Room and the things it contains (including himself and Ma) are "real."
Ma, unwilling to disappoint Jack with a life she cannot give him, allows Jack to believe that the rest of the world exists only on television.
Ma tries her best to keep Jack healthy and happy via both physical and mental exercises, keeping a healthy diet, limiting TV-watching time, and strict body and oral hygiene.
The only other person Jack has ever seen is "Old Nick," who visits Room at night while Jack sleeps hidden in a wardrobe.
Old Nick brings them food and necessities. Jack is unaware that Old Nick kidnapped Ma when she was 19 years old and has kept her imprisoned for the past seven years.
Old Nick regularly rapes Ma; Jack is the product of one such sexual assault.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 爻蹖夭丿賴賲 賲丕乇爻 爻丕賱2014賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
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Jack lives with his Ma in Room, a secured single-room outbuilding containing a small kitchen, a basic bathroom, a wardrobe, a bed, and a TV set.
Because it is all he has ever known, Jack believes that only Room and the things it contains (including himself and Ma) are "real."
Ma, unwilling to disappoint Jack with a life she cannot give him, allows Jack to believe that the rest of the world exists only on television.
Ma tries her best to keep Jack healthy and happy via both physical and mental exercises, keeping a healthy diet, limiting TV-watching time, and strict body and oral hygiene.
The only other person Jack has ever seen is "Old Nick," who visits Room at night while Jack sleeps hidden in a wardrobe.
Old Nick brings them food and necessities. Jack is unaware that Old Nick kidnapped Ma when she was 19 years old and has kept her imprisoned for the past seven years.
Old Nick regularly rapes Ma; Jack is the product of one such sexual assault.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 爻蹖夭丿賴賲 賲丕乇爻 爻丕賱2014賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
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鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 21/10/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 25/08/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
September 30, 2010
Based on, or 鈥榠nspired by鈥� shocking cases like that of Josef Fritzl, Room is the story of a boy, Jack, born and raised with his captive mother in a 12 foot square room. Narrated by the boy himself, it鈥檚 a child鈥檚 eye view of a small world housing a great deal of imagination, pain and love.
Packed with the emotional punch and occasional humour that comes with having a child narrator, comparisons will inevitably be drawn to John Boyne鈥檚 The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas. In my opinion, Room surpasses that book because the protagonist feels more real; Donoghue accomplishes the job of not only getting inside the head of a child, as Boyne very cleverly, but more cloyingly did, but she also has a protagonist who鈥檚 only experience of the world is a television with four fuzzy channels and his mother鈥檚 stories, which adds a whole new, tougher and more horrific, dimension.
In describing the lives of these two captives in this tiny room, Donoghue exercise as much, if not more, imagination than creators of entire universes, like Tolkien. The tiny attention to detail paid to their room and Jack鈥檚 description of it, makes it an all too real and terrible place.
It鈥檚 not really a plot-driven book, although I found my heart racing on several occasions, desperate to find out what happens to this dear, naive little boy. It is definitely a book that is difficult to write about with revealing spoiling for those who are yet to enjoy it. At its core I guess it鈥檚 about the indomitable human spirit, but there is a palpable sadness and desperation that makes gripping but painful reading. There is more violence contained in a muttered line about cork floorboards than a dozen Bret Easton Ellis novels put together, a true testament to Donoghue鈥檚 skill at creating empathy for Jack and his mother.
Room definitely deserves its place on the Booker Prize short-list but it is far from perfect. The focus on the two central characters leaves others in the novel feeling like broadly painted caricatures. There are also some clever post-modern allusions to the cult of celebrity, which provide neat satire, but these are tangled with occasional moments, largely towards the end of the novel, where Jack鈥檚 voice feels a just a little too much like the author鈥檚 commentary on modern life, rather than simply Jack鈥檚 view of the world.
I very much agree with the Audrey Niffenegger quote on the sleeve: 鈥淲hen it鈥檚 over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days鈥�. Several times since finishing the book I鈥檝e wondered about the scale of my own world and what lies beyond it 鈥� having never seen them, are the Pyramids only TV?
Packed with the emotional punch and occasional humour that comes with having a child narrator, comparisons will inevitably be drawn to John Boyne鈥檚 The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas. In my opinion, Room surpasses that book because the protagonist feels more real; Donoghue accomplishes the job of not only getting inside the head of a child, as Boyne very cleverly, but more cloyingly did, but she also has a protagonist who鈥檚 only experience of the world is a television with four fuzzy channels and his mother鈥檚 stories, which adds a whole new, tougher and more horrific, dimension.
In describing the lives of these two captives in this tiny room, Donoghue exercise as much, if not more, imagination than creators of entire universes, like Tolkien. The tiny attention to detail paid to their room and Jack鈥檚 description of it, makes it an all too real and terrible place.
It鈥檚 not really a plot-driven book, although I found my heart racing on several occasions, desperate to find out what happens to this dear, naive little boy. It is definitely a book that is difficult to write about with revealing spoiling for those who are yet to enjoy it. At its core I guess it鈥檚 about the indomitable human spirit, but there is a palpable sadness and desperation that makes gripping but painful reading. There is more violence contained in a muttered line about cork floorboards than a dozen Bret Easton Ellis novels put together, a true testament to Donoghue鈥檚 skill at creating empathy for Jack and his mother.
Room definitely deserves its place on the Booker Prize short-list but it is far from perfect. The focus on the two central characters leaves others in the novel feeling like broadly painted caricatures. There are also some clever post-modern allusions to the cult of celebrity, which provide neat satire, but these are tangled with occasional moments, largely towards the end of the novel, where Jack鈥檚 voice feels a just a little too much like the author鈥檚 commentary on modern life, rather than simply Jack鈥檚 view of the world.
I very much agree with the Audrey Niffenegger quote on the sleeve: 鈥淲hen it鈥檚 over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days鈥�. Several times since finishing the book I鈥檝e wondered about the scale of my own world and what lies beyond it 鈥� having never seen them, are the Pyramids only TV?
October 26, 2022
Jack is about to celebrate his fifth birthday in a Room with his Ma. They have been in this Room every second of Jack's life so far. This is just the beginning of their story, Jack's fifth birthday.
This Man Booker prize shortlisted novel is a masterpiece as it ultimately portrays the power of maternal love under the most dire conditions. Recommended reading for all, just on the basis that there's hardly anything out there like this... as it is written from the five year old Jack's point of view! 8 out of 12.
2011 read
This Man Booker prize shortlisted novel is a masterpiece as it ultimately portrays the power of maternal love under the most dire conditions. Recommended reading for all, just on the basis that there's hardly anything out there like this... as it is written from the five year old Jack's point of view! 8 out of 12.
2011 read
June 6, 2016
I read this book a couple of years ago and it remains a favorite. Hearing that it's being made into a movie is intriguing. I'm always excited/anxious when this happens as I worry that it will replace some of things I loved most about the book...if that makes sense.
This book had such a hold on me that I finished it in two sittings. After I was done it was all I could think about for days and still think about quite often. Dora the Explorer was on TV as I was flipping channels the other day and I immediately thought of this novel again.
Told from the point of view of five-year-old Jack (child-speak and all) was unexpected but ended up being wonderful. It took a little time (maybe 10 pages) to get used to following Jack's train of thought but after that it was easy. He stole my heart! I was drawn into their private world right from the beginning.
Even though Ma is not a main voice in the novel a vivid picture is given from Jack's descriptions. I could feel the love she had for Jack while she struggled to keep it together for herself and her son. I was so impressed by her resourcefulness and how she even helps Jack somewhat thrive in a place she desperately wants to escape.
An amazing and heart-wrenching story of love and survival. Although there is much dark subject matter I felt it was handled gently. My emotions were wrung out and it truly made me thankful for my freedom and the freedom of my child. It kept me tightly gripped and on the edge of my seat until the very end. Definitely an extremely riveting and powerful read that I highly recommend.
Favorite quotes:
鈥淚 don't like a clever toilet looking at our butts.鈥�
"Before I didn't even know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it. When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything."
This book had such a hold on me that I finished it in two sittings. After I was done it was all I could think about for days and still think about quite often. Dora the Explorer was on TV as I was flipping channels the other day and I immediately thought of this novel again.
Told from the point of view of five-year-old Jack (child-speak and all) was unexpected but ended up being wonderful. It took a little time (maybe 10 pages) to get used to following Jack's train of thought but after that it was easy. He stole my heart! I was drawn into their private world right from the beginning.
Even though Ma is not a main voice in the novel a vivid picture is given from Jack's descriptions. I could feel the love she had for Jack while she struggled to keep it together for herself and her son. I was so impressed by her resourcefulness and how she even helps Jack somewhat thrive in a place she desperately wants to escape.
An amazing and heart-wrenching story of love and survival. Although there is much dark subject matter I felt it was handled gently. My emotions were wrung out and it truly made me thankful for my freedom and the freedom of my child. It kept me tightly gripped and on the edge of my seat until the very end. Definitely an extremely riveting and powerful read that I highly recommend.
Favorite quotes:
鈥淚 don't like a clever toilet looking at our butts.鈥�
"Before I didn't even know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it. When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything."
March 22, 2015
Room has been called "remarkable," and "sensational." It was not only shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but it was also chosen as a Favorite Book of 2010 by our fair goodreads community, proving once again that heads are up asses in of literary critics and readers everywhere.
How this book is anything but blither is beyond me.
The reality is that the plot for this book was ripped from the headlines, based on the stories of , , and the . Emma Donoghue was given a $2 million advance to write Room. With cash in hand and only a plot outline, clearly no one gave a shit if the final work were good or not. What a better way to save face than to tout a piece of crap book you actually paid someone to write as a "gem." UGH. In the end, all we have is yet another author exploiting and getting rich off of the real life tragedies of others. I suppose I wouldn't mind so much -- hey, I may even cheer it on -- if it were done well. In this case, it was done horribly.
You see, if you truly do want to hear the blabbering of a 5 year-old for 300 pages, then you immediately need to change careers and become a kindergarten teacher. Look. It takes talent to write in the voice of a child, which is precisely why so few authors are successful at it. When a good author writes from a child's perspective, the book becomes a classic. Think about it. J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, Roald Dahl, and James Joyce. As for the rest of them? The child narrator is nothing more than a laughable gimmick.
Emma Donoghue falls flat on her face -- and drags us down with her -- for an entire novel with that very gimmick. I don't have patience for "silly penis is always standing up in the morning. I push him down," nor "penis floats," and especially not "my poo is hard to push out." I don't care for rambling recounts of Dylan the Digger and Dora the Explorer, either. Further, I found it odd that a child who is remarkably well-versed in the narrative would have such huge inconsistencies in his spoken English, many times sounding like a 3 year-old while at other times having perfect grammar. Huh? Finally, I got rather annoyed by Capitalizing Nouns and Other Objects in the Room, I found it Distracting and Annoying, and to me it screams Piss Poor Writer. Don't forget to throw in some of Donoghue's own politics for fun: our 5 year-old is still breastfeeding and he loves to tell us which boob produces the creamiest milk. Don't be disgusted. After all, it's natural! And let's not forget the most blatant and frankly, lame, self-insertion by an author into her own novel: Noreen is a kind and clever nurse who hails from merry ol' Ireland, just like our author. BARF.
Forgive me for not passionately hating this book more. Quite simply, it bored the hell out of me. I spent half the time wishing someone would throw the narrator back in the room so he'd shut the hell up. I spent the other half wanting to slap Donoghue's publishers. Suffice to say....
SUCKED.
How this book is anything but blither is beyond me.
The reality is that the plot for this book was ripped from the headlines, based on the stories of , , and the . Emma Donoghue was given a $2 million advance to write Room. With cash in hand and only a plot outline, clearly no one gave a shit if the final work were good or not. What a better way to save face than to tout a piece of crap book you actually paid someone to write as a "gem." UGH. In the end, all we have is yet another author exploiting and getting rich off of the real life tragedies of others. I suppose I wouldn't mind so much -- hey, I may even cheer it on -- if it were done well. In this case, it was done horribly.
You see, if you truly do want to hear the blabbering of a 5 year-old for 300 pages, then you immediately need to change careers and become a kindergarten teacher. Look. It takes talent to write in the voice of a child, which is precisely why so few authors are successful at it. When a good author writes from a child's perspective, the book becomes a classic. Think about it. J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, Roald Dahl, and James Joyce. As for the rest of them? The child narrator is nothing more than a laughable gimmick.
Emma Donoghue falls flat on her face -- and drags us down with her -- for an entire novel with that very gimmick. I don't have patience for "silly penis is always standing up in the morning. I push him down," nor "penis floats," and especially not "my poo is hard to push out." I don't care for rambling recounts of Dylan the Digger and Dora the Explorer, either. Further, I found it odd that a child who is remarkably well-versed in the narrative would have such huge inconsistencies in his spoken English, many times sounding like a 3 year-old while at other times having perfect grammar. Huh? Finally, I got rather annoyed by Capitalizing Nouns and Other Objects in the Room, I found it Distracting and Annoying, and to me it screams Piss Poor Writer. Don't forget to throw in some of Donoghue's own politics for fun: our 5 year-old is still breastfeeding and he loves to tell us which boob produces the creamiest milk. Don't be disgusted. After all, it's natural! And let's not forget the most blatant and frankly, lame, self-insertion by an author into her own novel: Noreen is a kind and clever nurse who hails from merry ol' Ireland, just like our author. BARF.
Forgive me for not passionately hating this book more. Quite simply, it bored the hell out of me. I spent half the time wishing someone would throw the narrator back in the room so he'd shut the hell up. I spent the other half wanting to slap Donoghue's publishers. Suffice to say....
SUCKED.
June 8, 2017
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY?
This seems to be a real Marmite book (love it or loathe it, with no fence-sitting), so I'm going to mix my metaphors: I bit the bullet, to see which way the wind was blowing and was surprised to find myself sitting on the empty fence. I was very undecided about stars, but there are many much better books I've given 3*, so this gets 2*, even though there was, on reflection, more to it than I first thought. The quality of the writing is not sufficient for 3*.
Overall, I think it鈥檚 poorly written (exacerbated by the way Donoghue tries to use unusual language for specific effect), but it is something of a page-turner, it鈥檚 quite a quick read (unless you overempathise, get depressed, and need a break) and it does contain some interesting ideas, especially in the second half about aspects of coping with 鈥渇reedom鈥� (though I am unsure how many are taken directly from news reports and interviews with former captives, and how many are her own).
OVERVIEW
The situation is well-known: a twenty six year old woman, 鈥淢a鈥�, is living with her five year old son, Jack, in a tiny locked room. She has been there since she was abducted aged nineteen, and the story is narrated by Jack. They have daily visits from their captor, who brings meagre supplies, though they do have a TV and half a dozen books. Jack thinks reality is everything in their room, and that everything 鈥渋n TV鈥� is pretend.
The first half of the book is set in Room (yes, with a capital letter and no article (鈥渁鈥� or 鈥渢he鈥�), like most of the few objects in their lives), and the second half is on the outside. It is clearly influenced by the recent news stories of Natasha Kampusch and Jaycee Lee Duggard etc, and that potentially prurient aspect did hold me back from reading this book for a long time. But I subsequently learned that Donoghue has said she was more influenced by the Fritzl case, which seems odd, because that was fundamentally different, as the abductor, imprisoner, and impregnator was the father of the young woman (more than one, initially).
LANGUAGE AND WRITING
Right from the start, I found the narration annoying - not because it's by a 5-year old, but because he's such an unconvincing 5-year old. For example, he has a very good vocabulary for his age (fair enough), and yet there are a few really basic words that he seems not to know (instead of "a man" or "the woman" he refers to "a he" and "the she" - except on one occasion when he unaccountably gets it right), and he often gets irregular past tenses and word order wrong, in the way that children younger than five often do (鈥淚 winned鈥�, 鈥渨e knowed鈥�, 鈥淚 brung鈥�, 鈥渨hy you don鈥檛 like鈥� and to a driver, 鈥渕ay you go us please to鈥︹€�). Furthermore, he repeatedly makes these errors despite his mother's diligence in correcting his grammar and the fact he watches TV.
It鈥檚 almost as if you can see Donoghue weighing up the need for Jack to be intelligent and insightful enough to tell the story in an engaging way (which, to a large extent, he does) with the need to tick certain boxes to make it clear he is just a small child. Similarly, we鈥檙e expected to believe that Jack points out 鈥渁 dog crossing a road with a human on a rope鈥� and thinks someone lighting up is trying to set himself on fire, even though he鈥檚 had TV and a mother who has tried to teach him about the (fictitious) world.
The fact Jack is still breastfed is not surprising: it鈥檚 comforting for both of them. What is surprising though is that the word itself seems to be taboo (instead, he talks about 鈥渉aving some鈥�, without ever saying what), and yet he鈥檚 happy to use the words 鈥減enis鈥� and 鈥渧agina鈥�, and is open about bathing with his mother. That may sound like nit-picking, but it鈥檚 an example of the sort of thing that frustrated me. I just didn鈥檛 feel Donoghue had really thought it through thoroughly. If you鈥檙e going to play with language to make your point, you need to be able to do so convincingly.
PLOT
The book is in five sections, though really it falls more naturally into two: inside and outside.
The relationship between mother and son is touching and the book opens by establishing the routines and rituals of their restricted life, including the almost liturgical way they say 鈥済ood night鈥� to all their (few) possessions: 鈥淕ood night, Room鈥� good night, Rug鈥� etc. The creativity required to raise a child in a confined space with such limited resources are impressive, too (they blow their eggs, so the whole shells can be threaded to make a snake, and do PE using their limited furniture as gym props).
Initially, and in some ways, their life doesn鈥檛 seem as bad as you might expect, and even the first appearance of their captor (鈥淥ld Nick鈥�) is relatively benign. That reflects the way Ma is raising Jack in the most positive way she can. Of course, we know something of the real horrors of the story, and they are discussed, though never in graphic detail, in part because Jack鈥檚 comprehension is limited, and in part because of Ma's success in shielding him from the nature of the situation.
I thought the escape was badly done, but much better is the when, leading up to it, Ma has to explain to Jack that what he鈥檚 seen 鈥渋n TV鈥� is real. They go through a confusing process of 鈥渦nlying鈥� as she tries to prepare him for what might follow an escape.
Once outside, it鈥檚 superficially about the practicalities of adjusting to the real world, but really it鈥檚 questioning the nature and price of freedom. I found this part had more interesting ideas, but contained more implausibility of plot (though I鈥檓 no expert in such matters) and very flat new characters. In particular, the method and speed with which the police locate Room was absurd, and also some of the logistics, practicalities and oversights of those charged with their care and settlement on the outside were dodgy, such as the first planned trip for these traumatised celebrities being to a museum with an uncle whom Jack had only met once!
WHAT IS FREEDOM?
The reader roots for Ma and Jack to escape, and they do (no spoiler 鈥� the book blurb tells you). Hooray! But of course they soon discover a new form of captivity: medical/psychiatric, hiding from fame, and so on. And this is where it gets interesting and starts to feel more plausible. Jack鈥檚 only knowledge of outside is from occasional TV programmes, and Ma鈥檚 is from seven years ago, when she was a carefree student, rather than a traumatised mother. Jack has to discover the world, and Ma has to (re)discover a new version of herself; she tells Jack, 鈥淚 know you need me to be your ma but I鈥檓 having to remember how to be me as well鈥�, to which he replies, 鈥淏ut I thought the her and the Ma were the same鈥�. Similarly, having more, can leave one feeling impoverished: Jack is puzzled when Ma cautions him to be careful of something her brother gave to her, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know it was hers-not-mine. In Room everything was ours.鈥�
Some of the things they struggle to cope with are not ones that would initially have occurred to me (germs, sunburn, stairs), and one effect is to make it almost as if Jack has acquired Asperger鈥檚 syndrome: he can鈥檛 filter the multiple stimuli of a busy world; doesn鈥檛 understand social conventions, etiquette, and privacy; is confused by relationships and pronouns (鈥淭he 鈥榶ou鈥� means Ma, not me, I鈥檓 getting good at telling鈥�); takes common idioms literally (such as 鈥淚鈥檓 afraid so鈥� and 鈥済et his act together鈥�, but surely some cropped up from Ma and TV?); doesn鈥檛 like being touched or having to wear shoes; is borderline agoraphobic; increases his counting-his-teeth stress-relieving tactic; is uncoordinated from poor spatial perception; and feels insecure without routine. Jack asks, 鈥淏ut what鈥檚 the rule?鈥�, to which he is told 鈥淭here is no rule.鈥� That鈥檚 a liberating idea to Ma, but scary to Jack. He misses Room and his few possessions because it鈥檚 all he鈥檇 ever known; Ma, understandably, wants to leave it all behind both literally and in even from conversation and memory. When he has nightmares, the doctor says 鈥淣ow you鈥檙e safe, it鈥檚 [the brain] gathering up all those scary thoughts you don鈥檛 need any more, and throwing them out鈥�, but Jack disagrees, 鈥渁ctually he鈥檚 got it backwards. In Room I was safe and Outside is the scary.鈥�
Another aspect is how Ma鈥檚 family react. The girl they knew 鈥� and thought dead 鈥� has been replaced by someone similar, but different, and they have Jack to contend with. Ma loves him unconditionally, despite his parentage, but if you were her mother or father, how would you feel about this constant reminder of what happened?
To sum up, this wasn鈥檛 as prurient as I feared, and it was very thought-provoking, but it could have been SO much better.
THE FILM
The only occasions I've preferred a film to the original book are where I didn't enjoy the book. I'm told the film of this is excellent, especially the boy who plays Jack. A couple of friends, who knew my reasons for disliking this, have almost persuaded me to see it. I don't think I'll pay money to watch it in the cinema, but once it's on TV, I might. With the right cast, and subtle direction and dialog, I may change my views of what should be a powerful story.
This seems to be a real Marmite book (love it or loathe it, with no fence-sitting), so I'm going to mix my metaphors: I bit the bullet, to see which way the wind was blowing and was surprised to find myself sitting on the empty fence. I was very undecided about stars, but there are many much better books I've given 3*, so this gets 2*, even though there was, on reflection, more to it than I first thought. The quality of the writing is not sufficient for 3*.
Overall, I think it鈥檚 poorly written (exacerbated by the way Donoghue tries to use unusual language for specific effect), but it is something of a page-turner, it鈥檚 quite a quick read (unless you overempathise, get depressed, and need a break) and it does contain some interesting ideas, especially in the second half about aspects of coping with 鈥渇reedom鈥� (though I am unsure how many are taken directly from news reports and interviews with former captives, and how many are her own).
OVERVIEW
The situation is well-known: a twenty six year old woman, 鈥淢a鈥�, is living with her five year old son, Jack, in a tiny locked room. She has been there since she was abducted aged nineteen, and the story is narrated by Jack. They have daily visits from their captor, who brings meagre supplies, though they do have a TV and half a dozen books. Jack thinks reality is everything in their room, and that everything 鈥渋n TV鈥� is pretend.
The first half of the book is set in Room (yes, with a capital letter and no article (鈥渁鈥� or 鈥渢he鈥�), like most of the few objects in their lives), and the second half is on the outside. It is clearly influenced by the recent news stories of Natasha Kampusch and Jaycee Lee Duggard etc, and that potentially prurient aspect did hold me back from reading this book for a long time. But I subsequently learned that Donoghue has said she was more influenced by the Fritzl case, which seems odd, because that was fundamentally different, as the abductor, imprisoner, and impregnator was the father of the young woman (more than one, initially).
LANGUAGE AND WRITING
Right from the start, I found the narration annoying - not because it's by a 5-year old, but because he's such an unconvincing 5-year old. For example, he has a very good vocabulary for his age (fair enough), and yet there are a few really basic words that he seems not to know (instead of "a man" or "the woman" he refers to "a he" and "the she" - except on one occasion when he unaccountably gets it right), and he often gets irregular past tenses and word order wrong, in the way that children younger than five often do (鈥淚 winned鈥�, 鈥渨e knowed鈥�, 鈥淚 brung鈥�, 鈥渨hy you don鈥檛 like鈥� and to a driver, 鈥渕ay you go us please to鈥︹€�). Furthermore, he repeatedly makes these errors despite his mother's diligence in correcting his grammar and the fact he watches TV.
It鈥檚 almost as if you can see Donoghue weighing up the need for Jack to be intelligent and insightful enough to tell the story in an engaging way (which, to a large extent, he does) with the need to tick certain boxes to make it clear he is just a small child. Similarly, we鈥檙e expected to believe that Jack points out 鈥渁 dog crossing a road with a human on a rope鈥� and thinks someone lighting up is trying to set himself on fire, even though he鈥檚 had TV and a mother who has tried to teach him about the (fictitious) world.
The fact Jack is still breastfed is not surprising: it鈥檚 comforting for both of them. What is surprising though is that the word itself seems to be taboo (instead, he talks about 鈥渉aving some鈥�, without ever saying what), and yet he鈥檚 happy to use the words 鈥減enis鈥� and 鈥渧agina鈥�, and is open about bathing with his mother. That may sound like nit-picking, but it鈥檚 an example of the sort of thing that frustrated me. I just didn鈥檛 feel Donoghue had really thought it through thoroughly. If you鈥檙e going to play with language to make your point, you need to be able to do so convincingly.
PLOT
The book is in five sections, though really it falls more naturally into two: inside and outside.
The relationship between mother and son is touching and the book opens by establishing the routines and rituals of their restricted life, including the almost liturgical way they say 鈥済ood night鈥� to all their (few) possessions: 鈥淕ood night, Room鈥� good night, Rug鈥� etc. The creativity required to raise a child in a confined space with such limited resources are impressive, too (they blow their eggs, so the whole shells can be threaded to make a snake, and do PE using their limited furniture as gym props).
Initially, and in some ways, their life doesn鈥檛 seem as bad as you might expect, and even the first appearance of their captor (鈥淥ld Nick鈥�) is relatively benign. That reflects the way Ma is raising Jack in the most positive way she can. Of course, we know something of the real horrors of the story, and they are discussed, though never in graphic detail, in part because Jack鈥檚 comprehension is limited, and in part because of Ma's success in shielding him from the nature of the situation.
I thought the escape was badly done, but much better is the when, leading up to it, Ma has to explain to Jack that what he鈥檚 seen 鈥渋n TV鈥� is real. They go through a confusing process of 鈥渦nlying鈥� as she tries to prepare him for what might follow an escape.
Once outside, it鈥檚 superficially about the practicalities of adjusting to the real world, but really it鈥檚 questioning the nature and price of freedom. I found this part had more interesting ideas, but contained more implausibility of plot (though I鈥檓 no expert in such matters) and very flat new characters. In particular, the method and speed with which the police locate Room was absurd, and also some of the logistics, practicalities and oversights of those charged with their care and settlement on the outside were dodgy, such as the first planned trip for these traumatised celebrities being to a museum with an uncle whom Jack had only met once!
WHAT IS FREEDOM?
The reader roots for Ma and Jack to escape, and they do (no spoiler 鈥� the book blurb tells you). Hooray! But of course they soon discover a new form of captivity: medical/psychiatric, hiding from fame, and so on. And this is where it gets interesting and starts to feel more plausible. Jack鈥檚 only knowledge of outside is from occasional TV programmes, and Ma鈥檚 is from seven years ago, when she was a carefree student, rather than a traumatised mother. Jack has to discover the world, and Ma has to (re)discover a new version of herself; she tells Jack, 鈥淚 know you need me to be your ma but I鈥檓 having to remember how to be me as well鈥�, to which he replies, 鈥淏ut I thought the her and the Ma were the same鈥�. Similarly, having more, can leave one feeling impoverished: Jack is puzzled when Ma cautions him to be careful of something her brother gave to her, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know it was hers-not-mine. In Room everything was ours.鈥�
Some of the things they struggle to cope with are not ones that would initially have occurred to me (germs, sunburn, stairs), and one effect is to make it almost as if Jack has acquired Asperger鈥檚 syndrome: he can鈥檛 filter the multiple stimuli of a busy world; doesn鈥檛 understand social conventions, etiquette, and privacy; is confused by relationships and pronouns (鈥淭he 鈥榶ou鈥� means Ma, not me, I鈥檓 getting good at telling鈥�); takes common idioms literally (such as 鈥淚鈥檓 afraid so鈥� and 鈥済et his act together鈥�, but surely some cropped up from Ma and TV?); doesn鈥檛 like being touched or having to wear shoes; is borderline agoraphobic; increases his counting-his-teeth stress-relieving tactic; is uncoordinated from poor spatial perception; and feels insecure without routine. Jack asks, 鈥淏ut what鈥檚 the rule?鈥�, to which he is told 鈥淭here is no rule.鈥� That鈥檚 a liberating idea to Ma, but scary to Jack. He misses Room and his few possessions because it鈥檚 all he鈥檇 ever known; Ma, understandably, wants to leave it all behind both literally and in even from conversation and memory. When he has nightmares, the doctor says 鈥淣ow you鈥檙e safe, it鈥檚 [the brain] gathering up all those scary thoughts you don鈥檛 need any more, and throwing them out鈥�, but Jack disagrees, 鈥渁ctually he鈥檚 got it backwards. In Room I was safe and Outside is the scary.鈥�
Another aspect is how Ma鈥檚 family react. The girl they knew 鈥� and thought dead 鈥� has been replaced by someone similar, but different, and they have Jack to contend with. Ma loves him unconditionally, despite his parentage, but if you were her mother or father, how would you feel about this constant reminder of what happened?
To sum up, this wasn鈥檛 as prurient as I feared, and it was very thought-provoking, but it could have been SO much better.
THE FILM
The only occasions I've preferred a film to the original book are where I didn't enjoy the book. I'm told the film of this is excellent, especially the boy who plays Jack. A couple of friends, who knew my reasons for disliking this, have almost persuaded me to see it. I don't think I'll pay money to watch it in the cinema, but once it's on TV, I might. With the right cast, and subtle direction and dialog, I may change my views of what should be a powerful story.
March 23, 2012
Have you ever see that 1997 film ? No? Well, it鈥檚 about this Italian Jew who is sent to a concentration camp with his wife and son during World War II, and in order to shield his son from the horrors of war, he tells him that they are really just playing a super fun game and that everyone in the camp is a contestant. Not surprisingly, his son believes the whole thing (kids are pretty dumb, right?) and he is able to maintain this ruse right up until the Allied invasion. So, Room is kind of like that except without the Allied invasion. Here you鈥檝e got this 5 year-old kid whose mother feeds him a pack of lies to prevent him from knowing the truth about their actual state of existence鈥攚hich is that they are trapped in someone鈥檚 backyard shed and probably will never see the light of day again. My inclination is to mention what happens next, but then I think I would be doing the book a disservice. What I can say, however, is that the entire novel is narrated by the 5 year-old schmuck, and while this may sound like it could be annoying, it really isn鈥檛. I enjoyed the unique perspective, especially since my engagement with the adult dynamics of the story was still somehow maintained. That鈥檚 a pretty impressive feat for an author.
But at least 5 year-olds can be good for something: the 鈥渞ed couch in the TV planet with the puffy-hair lady that鈥檚 the boss asking questions and hundreds of other persons clapping鈥� is by far the best description of The Oprah Winfrey Show I鈥檝e ever heard.
But at least 5 year-olds can be good for something: the 鈥渞ed couch in the TV planet with the puffy-hair lady that鈥檚 the boss asking questions and hundreds of other persons clapping鈥� is by far the best description of The Oprah Winfrey Show I鈥檝e ever heard.
July 13, 2021
One of the movie critics defined the Room as a state of mind that鈥檚 unbearably tense and as claustrophobic as straitjacket. Definitely suits with the entire concept.
The movie hit me so hard. I adored performances of Brie Larson as Ma ( pre suiting up to be Captain Marvel times but she deserved that golden statue, didn鈥檛 she) and angelic Jacob Tremblay as Jack. Actually Jack鈥檚 inner world he created in the room and his new life at the outside world were completely disturbing parts of the story because he was captured by a mad man who raped her several times but it seems like he created a safe and happy place in this room by living with her mother but at the outside world: he never set a foot in the door, the more challenges were expecting him: he was rapist鈥檚 kid and this could bring out hatred, resentment, anger which are boiled inside the people who are affected by traumatic incident including ma鈥檚 family.
I鈥檓 so happy to see Emma Donoghue was the screenwriter who adapted her own book to big screen. With the powerful performances that reflected the emotional depths of the characters, we realistically resonate with the compelling traumatic situation the mother and her child are getting through.
When I read the book I find the life in room parts a little slow and I somewhat agree with some critics who tell Jack鈥檚 inner monologues didn鈥檛 honestly reflect a five years old鈥檚 mind. But also we shouldn鈥檛 forget this child is not an ordinary five years old kid. He never sees outside. Her mother created a world inside their cage a.k.a. room with several activities, proportionated meal times, less tv watching, more extracurriculars to help her child to be like his peers when he鈥檚 dealing with extremely claustrophobic circumstances.
When the book adapted into the script the problem of slow burn story telling picked its face up and so the boredom we felt during our reading solved itself.
I have to admit the book was still intriguing and vividly disturbing but the original real life story behind it is more blood freezing, horrific! True story of young Australia woman Elisabeth Fritzl who had been imprisoned by her own father for 24 freaking years at a basement, the same father repeatedly raped her and impregnated her seven times and caused one miscarriage!!! Three of her children had been imprisoned with their mother for their entire lives till they rescued. And Elisabeth lost one of her child because of lack of medical attention child needed.
The story between two lines and different worlds: inside the room and outside the room.
It is still shaking you to the core, disturbing, giving you nightmares kind of provocative story.
I still think Emma Donoghue achieved an amazing job by telling this compelling story with her unique voice. Especially reflecting a captive young boy鈥檚 voice is the most challenging thing and argumentative subject. But she tried something unique, complex and she reached to our hearts and minds at the same time!
Especially the movie adaptation was the great combination of emotional performance and chilling, horrifying story based on true events.
I think this book is still a hit for me. I don鈥檛 reread it because it鈥檚 still too disturbing but it鈥檚 worth to read at least one time if you are psychologically ready to absorb the things you鈥檙e gonna read!
Giving my claustrophobic, straitjacket, high tension, Oscar worthy stars!
The movie hit me so hard. I adored performances of Brie Larson as Ma ( pre suiting up to be Captain Marvel times but she deserved that golden statue, didn鈥檛 she) and angelic Jacob Tremblay as Jack. Actually Jack鈥檚 inner world he created in the room and his new life at the outside world were completely disturbing parts of the story because he was captured by a mad man who raped her several times but it seems like he created a safe and happy place in this room by living with her mother but at the outside world: he never set a foot in the door, the more challenges were expecting him: he was rapist鈥檚 kid and this could bring out hatred, resentment, anger which are boiled inside the people who are affected by traumatic incident including ma鈥檚 family.
I鈥檓 so happy to see Emma Donoghue was the screenwriter who adapted her own book to big screen. With the powerful performances that reflected the emotional depths of the characters, we realistically resonate with the compelling traumatic situation the mother and her child are getting through.
When I read the book I find the life in room parts a little slow and I somewhat agree with some critics who tell Jack鈥檚 inner monologues didn鈥檛 honestly reflect a five years old鈥檚 mind. But also we shouldn鈥檛 forget this child is not an ordinary five years old kid. He never sees outside. Her mother created a world inside their cage a.k.a. room with several activities, proportionated meal times, less tv watching, more extracurriculars to help her child to be like his peers when he鈥檚 dealing with extremely claustrophobic circumstances.
When the book adapted into the script the problem of slow burn story telling picked its face up and so the boredom we felt during our reading solved itself.
I have to admit the book was still intriguing and vividly disturbing but the original real life story behind it is more blood freezing, horrific! True story of young Australia woman Elisabeth Fritzl who had been imprisoned by her own father for 24 freaking years at a basement, the same father repeatedly raped her and impregnated her seven times and caused one miscarriage!!! Three of her children had been imprisoned with their mother for their entire lives till they rescued. And Elisabeth lost one of her child because of lack of medical attention child needed.
The story between two lines and different worlds: inside the room and outside the room.
It is still shaking you to the core, disturbing, giving you nightmares kind of provocative story.
I still think Emma Donoghue achieved an amazing job by telling this compelling story with her unique voice. Especially reflecting a captive young boy鈥檚 voice is the most challenging thing and argumentative subject. But she tried something unique, complex and she reached to our hearts and minds at the same time!
Especially the movie adaptation was the great combination of emotional performance and chilling, horrifying story based on true events.
I think this book is still a hit for me. I don鈥檛 reread it because it鈥檚 still too disturbing but it鈥檚 worth to read at least one time if you are psychologically ready to absorb the things you鈥檙e gonna read!
Giving my claustrophobic, straitjacket, high tension, Oscar worthy stars!
May 14, 2012
ARGH! NO! NO! NO! IF I HAVE TO READ ONE MORE ASININE CHAPTER, WRITTEN FROM A FIVE-YEAR OLD'S POV, ON THE MUNDANE THINGS THEY DO IN THE ROOM ALL DAY, WITHOUT HAVING THE PLOT PROGRESS EVEN REMOTELY, I'LL... I'LL...
August 25, 2017
A
賯氐丞貙 亘賱 丨噩乇丞 賲丕 兀賳 鬲禺乇噩 賲賳賴丕 爻鬲鬲睾賷乇 賳馗乇鬲賰 賱賱毓丕賱賲
As Jack saying Good-bye, Room., I felt really sad leaving..
I became a "Roomer".. As Jack & his Ma.
鈥淲hen I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything.鈥�Our Amazing Narrator, Jack, when he turned five he learns a shocking truth about his whole 5-years life..
鈥淛ack, Yer a
Yes, he has been born in Room where his Ma been captive for seven years by the maniac "Old Nick" - which is BTW a nickname for the Devil in Christianity in the 17th century-.
He's never been outside... all his life with his Ma in Room, and frequent visits of Old Nick who
Room is all his real world.. it doesn't even has windows, just a skylight.. that's all what he can see of outside.
For him Outside is not real, is outer-space, fantasy .. is just TV.
鈥淲hen I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I鈥檓 in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn鈥檛 real at all.鈥�
The First Half of the novel is how this miserable life is going on... but no matter how miserable, when you see it with the eyes of 5 years old Roomer like sweet great smart Jack..it's so fun, it's so good...yet my heart ached a lot..
You'll feel how amazing job the Ma did to make Jack smart, well educated, healthy, have a fine Art touch, Eating well...Reading well too..
His Ma is simply the best Ma in the World.....
鈥淵ou know who you belong to, Jack?鈥�
鈥渊别补丑.鈥�
鈥渊辞耻谤蝉别濒蹿.鈥�
He鈥檚 wrong, actually, I belong to Ma.鈥�
You'll see how this week of his 5th Birthday goes on.. in amazing Wide-Eye Jack's narrating.. till he's whole life changes..
This First part may feel irritating for some.. but really the amazing narrating of Jack made me love it so much.. it's may be slow but I felt fun slow reading it.
Wait, I hear you feel it's weird case anyway..hard to believe..
You'll be shocked when you hear there's cases like this really happens.. haven't you read before?
鈥淎ll this reverential鈥擨鈥檓 not a saint.鈥� Ma鈥檚 voice is getting loud again. 鈥淚 wish people would stop treating us like we鈥檙e the only ones who ever lived through something terrible. I鈥檝e been finding stuff on the Internet you wouldn鈥檛 believe.鈥�
Anyway, The Second Half is faster and full of changes...
鈥淭he world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it鈥檚 going to be the next minute.鈥�
I won't spoil it to you... but despite how crazy everything happens in the middle of the novel, it's hard to think of alternate way out.. it was the thrilling part that made me literally on the edge of Chair reading it..
And it's brilliant seeing the novel in two halves, this second half Jack's narrating is shocked seeing how wide,wild World can be...
"Want to go to Bed."
"They'll find us somewhere to sleep in a little while."
"No. Bed."
"You mean in Room?" Ma's pulled back, she's staring in my eyes.
"Yeah. I've seen the world and I'm tired now.鈥�
He's may be 5 years old, A Roomer, but he's totally right about the world..
How we never have time for any thing...
鈥淚n the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don't have jobs, so I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well.
In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit....鈥�
How we really care less than we think..
鈥淎lso everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.鈥�
How we pretend..all the time on many things.
鈥淲hen I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being totally real. Now I'm in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn't real at all.鈥�
How Cruel our world can be....
鈥淏ut the thing is, slavery鈥檚 not a new invention. And solitary confinement鈥攄id you know, in America we鈥檝e got more than twenty-five thousand prisoners in isolation cells?鈥�
How Sad we're judging people without a clue of their own lives.. It's really sad.. and how Crazy and obsessed people are sometimes..
鈥淎h, you asked why, Jack? Because there's a lot of crazies out there.鈥�
I thought the crazies were in here in the Clinic getting helped.
The Bottom Line
It will really make you think deeper into our "Huge Room" we're locked into..
To think twice before judging anyone..
To just go hug your mom so passionately and just keep saying Thank you.... to Hug your kid and really care for everything they say or want.
The strange kidnapping here was not real, but it's not totally strange from our crazy world...
There's even more misery in this world not just in captive...but just more than what Jack and his Ma been into..even crueler and crueler..
鈥淪tories are a different kind of true.鈥�
I really didn't want to finish this book, this super sweet or supweet -as Jack and his Ma likes to make words sandwiches- narrating of the smart Scave "will forever be more brave than scared" Jack, who
鈥�'... where there's one there's ten.'
That's crazy math.
鈥淚 bang my head on a faucet. 鈥淐areful.鈥�
Why do persons only say that after the hurt?
This story really can make you feel something wrong...something missing on our way we live..
鈥淓verybody's damaged by something.鈥�
But that's simply how good novels are..
鈥淩eally, a novel does not exist, does not happen, until readers pour their own lives into it.鈥�
So finally,
So Good-bye, Jack..
Good-bye, Jack's Ma..
Good-bye, Grandma, Steppa.
Good-bye, Dr.Clay, Noreen, Officer Oh :).
Good-bye, Paul,Deanna, Bryanna.
Good-bye, Dylan The Dagger, Alice, Books.
Good-bye, Bed, Rug, Duvet, Rocker, Table, Sink, Bath, Cabinet & Wardrobe.
Good-bye, Walls..
Good-bye, Room.....
Good-bye, Book.
Mohammed Arabey
From 10 May 2017
To 18 May 2017
July 24, 2016
This book was as interesting and twisted as I hoped it would be! The writing style was slightly jarring and I got one sentence into the audiobook before going NOPE (annoying child voice... argh), but I did end up enjoying it once I got further into it!
This book's main selling point is that it's not just your average trauma story of being locked in isolation-- it's told through the eyes of a child, and that room is all he's known for his entire life. I went into this expecting almost a thriller, a "will they get out of that situation???" type of storyline, but I was wrong. This follows more of a "can they get out, and when they do, can they live normally in the outside world after being locked up for so long?" And I liked that version more than I thought I would. Although half way through this book it wrapped itself up and felt very weird to continue onward, I did enjoy seeing the character progress throughout the end of the book, and although I wish we could have seen from someone other than Jack's perspective (he got exhausting and frustrating after a while), I think this would be a REALLY good book to discuss amongst friends and I'm sure the movie is very jarring.
There were certain points that gave me chills so bad that I had to put the book down, just because the severity of what these characters went through was so chilling, and all of it is undermined by the fact that the entire thing is told from the perspective of someone that's too young to understand. I just think this book brings up great controversies, was a tragic story of a mother and son who had to go through hell, and it was just as gripping and unforgettable as I hoped it would be. My only complaint is the pacing throughout the middle of it, and Jack's voice growing irritating after a while.
This book's main selling point is that it's not just your average trauma story of being locked in isolation-- it's told through the eyes of a child, and that room is all he's known for his entire life. I went into this expecting almost a thriller, a "will they get out of that situation???" type of storyline, but I was wrong. This follows more of a "can they get out, and when they do, can they live normally in the outside world after being locked up for so long?" And I liked that version more than I thought I would. Although half way through this book it wrapped itself up and felt very weird to continue onward, I did enjoy seeing the character progress throughout the end of the book, and although I wish we could have seen from someone other than Jack's perspective (he got exhausting and frustrating after a while), I think this would be a REALLY good book to discuss amongst friends and I'm sure the movie is very jarring.
There were certain points that gave me chills so bad that I had to put the book down, just because the severity of what these characters went through was so chilling, and all of it is undermined by the fact that the entire thing is told from the perspective of someone that's too young to understand. I just think this book brings up great controversies, was a tragic story of a mother and son who had to go through hell, and it was just as gripping and unforgettable as I hoped it would be. My only complaint is the pacing throughout the middle of it, and Jack's voice growing irritating after a while.
November 7, 2011
This book didn't have a chance with me.
1. It was written from the perspective of a five-year-old boy.
2. For the first two thirds of the book the kid was annoying.
3. The mom breastfeeds the kid a lot. I counted twelve times before I stopped counting. The kid creeped me out by talking about which boob tasted better.
Why read it?
It was this month's selection for a book club I am part of. It wasn't my pick.
Why two stars rather than one?
Well, I'll be damned if I didn't start to feel sorry for the poor kid and like him despite myself. A writer who can do that to me deserves an extra star.
1. It was written from the perspective of a five-year-old boy.
2. For the first two thirds of the book the kid was annoying.
3. The mom breastfeeds the kid a lot. I counted twelve times before I stopped counting. The kid creeped me out by talking about which boob tasted better.
Why read it?
It was this month's selection for a book club I am part of. It wasn't my pick.
Why two stars rather than one?
Well, I'll be damned if I didn't start to feel sorry for the poor kid and like him despite myself. A writer who can do that to me deserves an extra star.
January 30, 2020
The amazing introspection of a child in an exceptional situation that endures it thanks to the love of a mother and human adaptability.
I do in general read mostly plot-focused books and if one is character-based, it has to be extremely popular, highly suggested or good-rated or has a unique plot and fresh ideas. I couldn麓t imagine how a credible description of the point of view of a child could be described in such a setting and how the mother orchestrated their small world and how she had to react to the childs麓 smartness to keep the semblance of an idyllic world intact is amazing.
The real-world inspiration is so disturbing that it is hard to deal with it, especially when using extrapolation and probability. There are quite a few humans on the planet and many disappear, so the number of such cases is close to impossible to seriously estimate, but it could even go so far as that not just one, but many generations are living in such conditions for decades or even centuries, a kind of family tradition of incestuous underground breeding and sex slavery.
And how the victims suffer under the danger of miscarriage, having a probably disabled kid by their own brother, uncles, fathers, grandfathers, cousins,鈥� and never seeing the light of day. The disturbed monsters who do that combine some of the worst crimes such as slavery, rape, and probably sometimes murder to satisfy whatever this perversion is and where it may come from.
From now on it gets a bit disturbing because I am adding some real-life facts that might be too hardcore for some readers.
There have been many documented cases of remote societies of families going totally bonkers, but it could, of course, be, as in the real case that inspired the novel, the normal neighborhood in a peaceful suburb. I mean, imagine that 20 to 25 meters next to your garden was an underground dungeon you didn麓t know about until the police found out and nobody can be sure that there is none, still unknown and undiscovered. The smarter, charismatic serial killers all had a reputation of being loving, caring, active in their communities and charity organizations, great fathers and husbands, inspiring, successful,鈥� just to seem as unsuspicious and normal as possible to stay below radar level, and faked all emotions, manipulative sociopaths/psychopaths they were.
I麓ve read something pretty disturbing regarding the fact that all knowledge is now so easily available on the internet and that nothing lies closer for such demons than to study all errors and flaws of predecessors, get knowledge about investigation methods, psychology and anything needed to not get caught. Probably one wouldn麓t even have to visit the dark/deep web and just normal, publicly accessible information, but since we are already there, some more mindf***.
Some of the information I麓ve collected about the dark/deep web shows that there are no nonprofits, duh, but companies with a normal business model and highly illegal and horror products. The rest is the same, there are forums, something like different amazons for anything illegal (do they have free shipping?), social networks, comment functions, rating systems and active participation and monetizing by filming for decades how the own daughter and grandchildren are held as sex slaves.
Technically highly skilled users are close to impossible to track down, as the progress in technology helps them to stay anonymous and they, just as with faking social life, have a very high motivation to become experts and have tendencies to get jobs that enable them to get skills, such as physicians like anesthetists to hold someone drugged forever or software engineers, and or to work close to humans in social jobs to get their livelong kick each time they enter a room with students or pupils or kids.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
German Wiki article:
I do in general read mostly plot-focused books and if one is character-based, it has to be extremely popular, highly suggested or good-rated or has a unique plot and fresh ideas. I couldn麓t imagine how a credible description of the point of view of a child could be described in such a setting and how the mother orchestrated their small world and how she had to react to the childs麓 smartness to keep the semblance of an idyllic world intact is amazing.
The real-world inspiration is so disturbing that it is hard to deal with it, especially when using extrapolation and probability. There are quite a few humans on the planet and many disappear, so the number of such cases is close to impossible to seriously estimate, but it could even go so far as that not just one, but many generations are living in such conditions for decades or even centuries, a kind of family tradition of incestuous underground breeding and sex slavery.
And how the victims suffer under the danger of miscarriage, having a probably disabled kid by their own brother, uncles, fathers, grandfathers, cousins,鈥� and never seeing the light of day. The disturbed monsters who do that combine some of the worst crimes such as slavery, rape, and probably sometimes murder to satisfy whatever this perversion is and where it may come from.
From now on it gets a bit disturbing because I am adding some real-life facts that might be too hardcore for some readers.
There have been many documented cases of remote societies of families going totally bonkers, but it could, of course, be, as in the real case that inspired the novel, the normal neighborhood in a peaceful suburb. I mean, imagine that 20 to 25 meters next to your garden was an underground dungeon you didn麓t know about until the police found out and nobody can be sure that there is none, still unknown and undiscovered. The smarter, charismatic serial killers all had a reputation of being loving, caring, active in their communities and charity organizations, great fathers and husbands, inspiring, successful,鈥� just to seem as unsuspicious and normal as possible to stay below radar level, and faked all emotions, manipulative sociopaths/psychopaths they were.
I麓ve read something pretty disturbing regarding the fact that all knowledge is now so easily available on the internet and that nothing lies closer for such demons than to study all errors and flaws of predecessors, get knowledge about investigation methods, psychology and anything needed to not get caught. Probably one wouldn麓t even have to visit the dark/deep web and just normal, publicly accessible information, but since we are already there, some more mindf***.
Some of the information I麓ve collected about the dark/deep web shows that there are no nonprofits, duh, but companies with a normal business model and highly illegal and horror products. The rest is the same, there are forums, something like different amazons for anything illegal (do they have free shipping?), social networks, comment functions, rating systems and active participation and monetizing by filming for decades how the own daughter and grandchildren are held as sex slaves.
Technically highly skilled users are close to impossible to track down, as the progress in technology helps them to stay anonymous and they, just as with faking social life, have a very high motivation to become experts and have tendencies to get jobs that enable them to get skills, such as physicians like anesthetists to hold someone drugged forever or software engineers, and or to work close to humans in social jobs to get their livelong kick each time they enter a room with students or pupils or kids.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
German Wiki article:
October 5, 2019
here's a confession:
if i voted for your review of this book before today, i had not fucking read it. oops, sorry! (upon quickfast, sherlockian investigation, i now know that only means two of you - and i read the first half of both of them before, i swear, and have now read them in their entireties) but i didn't want anything spoilt for me. i didn't want to know if the book was triumphant or devastating or funny or tragic or philosophical or melodramatic. i wanted the tone to be surprising, i wanted to avoid preconceived notions.
and hurrah - i got what i wanted.
now i am considering your feelings. do i think you (collective, anonymous) would benefit from a similar experience? do i dare presume?
i do, but...
but i will discuss it in what i hope will be an oblique way. if you don't know the plot of this book by now, after all the hype and acclaim, you have yourself probably been living in an 11x11 room held captive by a bad man. despite its being told entirely in the voice of an extremely sheltered five-year-old boy, it is more a meditation on motherhood and necessity and where the separation occurs between mother and child; what is the act that cleaves mother from child and allows each to lead their own individual lives? and where is the line between protection and deprivation? and what can be done with unwanted eggshells?
this book is excellent.
but i don't want to get too caught up in possible rooners. i myself want you to be like nell,
all pure and speaking your own bizarre stroke-language, not knowing anything about the greater world, where this book exists. in this scenario, i am the baaaad man.
and i am okay with that.
if i voted for your review of this book before today, i had not fucking read it. oops, sorry! (upon quickfast, sherlockian investigation, i now know that only means two of you - and i read the first half of both of them before, i swear, and have now read them in their entireties) but i didn't want anything spoilt for me. i didn't want to know if the book was triumphant or devastating or funny or tragic or philosophical or melodramatic. i wanted the tone to be surprising, i wanted to avoid preconceived notions.
and hurrah - i got what i wanted.
now i am considering your feelings. do i think you (collective, anonymous) would benefit from a similar experience? do i dare presume?
i do, but...
but i will discuss it in what i hope will be an oblique way. if you don't know the plot of this book by now, after all the hype and acclaim, you have yourself probably been living in an 11x11 room held captive by a bad man. despite its being told entirely in the voice of an extremely sheltered five-year-old boy, it is more a meditation on motherhood and necessity and where the separation occurs between mother and child; what is the act that cleaves mother from child and allows each to lead their own individual lives? and where is the line between protection and deprivation? and what can be done with unwanted eggshells?
this book is excellent.
but i don't want to get too caught up in possible rooners. i myself want you to be like nell,
all pure and speaking your own bizarre stroke-language, not knowing anything about the greater world, where this book exists. in this scenario, i am the baaaad man.and i am okay with that.
July 30, 2011
Wow. A book hasn't swallowed me whole like that in a long time. This one will be haunting be for awhile. I wish I could tell you what it's about, but I wish I hadn't read the back cover 30 pages or so into and changed my own perception. It's best to figure it out along with the story.
I will say that it's about a 5-year-old boy who has never left the room where he lives. His whole world is Room and Bed and Rug. It's a little jarring to read from his point of view and I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get into his story, but once I became accustomed to his voice, I couldn't put his story down. And his story wouldn't have the power it does without his perspective. We think about these type of stories from other perspectives, but never from his. Never from the child who is comfortable in his world that we know is all wrong. The child that never wants to leave his strange circumstances when we understand why he should.
Most of the time his naivete was right one, but there were occasions where Donoghue used his voice to explain something that I didn't buy into him understanding. I wish she would have trusted her reader more to see the discord of reality and his perception instead of using Jack to interpret his mother's emotions or the sequence of events. I loved the juxtaposition of reality and his interpretation and would have liked more of them. There were also some plot twists that didn't ring entirely true, but I so believed Jack that in the end it didn't matter. There is one point where the plot takes a turn in a different direction from Jack's perception but Jack's reality is so real, you don't even consider other options. That's when I knew I'd follow Jack anywhere.
Maybe it's the unusual perspective or the strong voice. Maybe it's that I know what it's like for a child to change your world. Maybe it's that right now I feel trapped in my own room with my own baby. Maybe it's that Jack's relationship with his mother is so different from own experience and I was both shocked and saddened by their bond. Or maybe it's that Donoghue made me think about the world in a way I never have before. But whatever it is, this book grabbed my attention and wouldn't let it go. I related to Jack's story when I couldn't possibly know what his life is like. It's difficult to make the humdrum of ordinary life day in and day out inside an 11x11 room exciting, but Donoghue manages to keep my intense attention.
Some of the things Jack made me think about were the autonomy of parents and children and how the line is different for a child than it is for parents. It's what sometimes causes conflict, things like that moment when as a parent you have to discipline where your child thinks of you as a friend. How we put our lives on hold for our children, but there is this whole other self that will eventually wake from slumber. What a parent should share with a child and what we should keep secret. How education is a good thing, but also a little magic in the world is good too. How children are smart enough to understand honest answers, but sometimes not mature enough for complete answers. How children think of their families and circumstances as normal no matter how unusual it is. It usually isn't until you move away that you learn that the givens of your own family aren't sacred. It makes you consider the world around you in a whole different light.
While some of the events in the book are disturbing, I don't think they're too disturbing. Jack's innocent voice saves us from the horror that this story could be. It's not about all the things lost in Outside. It's about wanting to stay in and safe. And it's about the power of maternal love. Because of that, the story has redemption and hope and happiness.
I will say that it's about a 5-year-old boy who has never left the room where he lives. His whole world is Room and Bed and Rug. It's a little jarring to read from his point of view and I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get into his story, but once I became accustomed to his voice, I couldn't put his story down. And his story wouldn't have the power it does without his perspective. We think about these type of stories from other perspectives, but never from his. Never from the child who is comfortable in his world that we know is all wrong. The child that never wants to leave his strange circumstances when we understand why he should.
Most of the time his naivete was right one, but there were occasions where Donoghue used his voice to explain something that I didn't buy into him understanding. I wish she would have trusted her reader more to see the discord of reality and his perception instead of using Jack to interpret his mother's emotions or the sequence of events. I loved the juxtaposition of reality and his interpretation and would have liked more of them. There were also some plot twists that didn't ring entirely true, but I so believed Jack that in the end it didn't matter. There is one point where the plot takes a turn in a different direction from Jack's perception but Jack's reality is so real, you don't even consider other options. That's when I knew I'd follow Jack anywhere.
Maybe it's the unusual perspective or the strong voice. Maybe it's that I know what it's like for a child to change your world. Maybe it's that right now I feel trapped in my own room with my own baby. Maybe it's that Jack's relationship with his mother is so different from own experience and I was both shocked and saddened by their bond. Or maybe it's that Donoghue made me think about the world in a way I never have before. But whatever it is, this book grabbed my attention and wouldn't let it go. I related to Jack's story when I couldn't possibly know what his life is like. It's difficult to make the humdrum of ordinary life day in and day out inside an 11x11 room exciting, but Donoghue manages to keep my intense attention.
Some of the things Jack made me think about were the autonomy of parents and children and how the line is different for a child than it is for parents. It's what sometimes causes conflict, things like that moment when as a parent you have to discipline where your child thinks of you as a friend. How we put our lives on hold for our children, but there is this whole other self that will eventually wake from slumber. What a parent should share with a child and what we should keep secret. How education is a good thing, but also a little magic in the world is good too. How children are smart enough to understand honest answers, but sometimes not mature enough for complete answers. How children think of their families and circumstances as normal no matter how unusual it is. It usually isn't until you move away that you learn that the givens of your own family aren't sacred. It makes you consider the world around you in a whole different light.
While some of the events in the book are disturbing, I don't think they're too disturbing. Jack's innocent voice saves us from the horror that this story could be. It's not about all the things lost in Outside. It's about wanting to stay in and safe. And it's about the power of maternal love. Because of that, the story has redemption and hope and happiness.
October 23, 2019
"Is that God up there?"
-Felix Fritzl, upon seeing the moon for the first time since leaving the cellar he had been imprisoned in.
ROOM for improvement.
2.5, bumped up to 3 stars (and that's being generous)
This life-affirming, but at times frustrating, story is told from the POV of Jack, a five-year-old boy whose universe is a room that he has never left, and which he shares with his mother.
What Jack doesn't initially realise is that both he and his mum are incarcerated (she, a victim of a kidnapping; he, the product of a rape at the hands of her captor).
Wonderfully told is the indestructible love of a mother for her son, borne from the helplessness of her situation.
Not so good are the stark inconsistencies in the boy's grammar.
Yes, he's only five, but he's stuck with a grown-up for twenty-four hours a day, so why on earth is his dialogue so infantile?
Example:
"Why am I hided away like the chocolates?"
Oh, give me a break! What five-year-old speaks like that, let alone one who exclusively converses with an adult?
You do have to suspend belief for a large part of the story. Jack's baby talk made me wish his mum would put a dummy (pacifier) into his mouth and the plot descended into inconceivable farce.
The book sets out with good intentions, but (for me) it becomes tedious after a while.
I applaud Donoghue for her courage in tackling such a difficult topic. Her writing, other than Jack's dialogue, is exemplary.
It could have been so much better.
-Felix Fritzl, upon seeing the moon for the first time since leaving the cellar he had been imprisoned in.
ROOM for improvement.
2.5, bumped up to 3 stars (and that's being generous)
This life-affirming, but at times frustrating, story is told from the POV of Jack, a five-year-old boy whose universe is a room that he has never left, and which he shares with his mother.
What Jack doesn't initially realise is that both he and his mum are incarcerated (she, a victim of a kidnapping; he, the product of a rape at the hands of her captor).
Wonderfully told is the indestructible love of a mother for her son, borne from the helplessness of her situation.
Not so good are the stark inconsistencies in the boy's grammar.
Yes, he's only five, but he's stuck with a grown-up for twenty-four hours a day, so why on earth is his dialogue so infantile?
Example:
"Why am I hided away like the chocolates?"
Oh, give me a break! What five-year-old speaks like that, let alone one who exclusively converses with an adult?
You do have to suspend belief for a large part of the story. Jack's baby talk made me wish his mum would put a dummy (pacifier) into his mouth and the plot descended into inconceivable farce.
The book sets out with good intentions, but (for me) it becomes tedious after a while.
I applaud Donoghue for her courage in tackling such a difficult topic. Her writing, other than Jack's dialogue, is exemplary.
It could have been so much better.
October 6, 2021
The rare literary fiction / popular fiction crossover that's worth the hype on both sides.
Everyone has talked about this book so much and no one has talked about it in 10 years and so that is all I have to say.
Bottom line: It's good! Either you've read it already or you probably aren't going to.
-------------
pre-review
somehow in my recollection this book was even worse, which is honestly kind of impressive if you ask me.
review to come / 3.5 or 4 stars
-------------
currently-reading updates
if "i read this a while ago and don't remember a thing about it" isn't a good enough reason to read a book, don't tell me now
Everyone has talked about this book so much and no one has talked about it in 10 years and so that is all I have to say.
Bottom line: It's good! Either you've read it already or you probably aren't going to.
-------------
pre-review
somehow in my recollection this book was even worse, which is honestly kind of impressive if you ask me.
review to come / 3.5 or 4 stars
-------------
currently-reading updates
if "i read this a while ago and don't remember a thing about it" isn't a good enough reason to read a book, don't tell me now
July 21, 2015
A novel narrated by a five year old? I'm not a kid person at all so do not think you need to be a mother to appreciate this story. There is something about Jack's way of looking at Room and at Outside that is refreshing instead of irritating. It's nice to not be dragged down by all the complexities of an adult narrator for a change and I know I would have given this story less stars if it were told through his mother's eyes. This is a story that Jack needed to tell and I am very happy that he did.
September 30, 2018
The effort deserves much applause indeed. The story is given to us via a peculiar POV: that of a five-year old boy who has never left the titular place, has lived all five years in extreme isolation with his mother. His innocence and curiosity is both unnerving & obnoxious. The overly deconstructionist prose is often times incoherent, then, just out of the blue, the kid gives us a brave listing of all the components that may carry with them a certain patina of poetry鈥攊n other words the authenticity is sorta questionable. I don鈥檛 know what the big deal is, as I鈥檝e read (despite maestro Michael Cunningham鈥檚 overly-enthusiastic endorsement that it is very unique) 鈥淭he Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,鈥� a more melancholy & more superb experiment involving kid's P.O.V. narration & the limitations actually have a REAL purpose.
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