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"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.