Room by Professor Emma Donoghue

Room

by Professor Emma Donoghue

Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time.

To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. . . . It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. 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's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer.

Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating -- a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child.

Reviewed by empressbrooke on

4 of 5 stars

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I avoided starting this one for a while even though the book club meeting that I'm reading it for is approaching...and then I read it all in one sitting today. I think I even forgot to eat dinner. Go figure. The subject matter is depressing as hell, but still manages to be touching and even funny at times. I especially appreciated that it was told from a kid's point of view, but completely avoided being oh-so-precious and precocious (I'm looking at you, [b:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close|4588|Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327879967s/4588.jpg|1940137], and I admit I only saw the movie version but will never, ever read it even if threatened at gunpoint).

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 20 February, 2012: Finished reading
  • 20 February, 2012: Reviewed