Room: Film tie-in

by Emma Donoghue

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Jack is rather smart for his age, he has a curious mind and always wants to know the answers to everything; but Jack doesn’t know much about what is in the world, since he was born in captivity. Room tells the story of a 5 year old and his mother who was kidnapped 7 years ago and locked in a room 11x11feet. Emma Donoghue got the idea for this book after reading about five-year-old Felix in the Fritzl case and this is an attempt to understand what the child’s views of the world. There is a lot of interesting aspects in this book, including the fact they call their captor Old Nick; which in old Christianity was a name used when referring to the devil.

While I was expecting this book to be dark and disturbing, this is really accessible to all readers (granted I would prefer darker) and doesn’t go into great details about the imprisonment. This is simply because the point of view is from the 5 year old, which is a good way to avoid getting into the disturbing aspects of living in captivity and can also make the book hard to get used to. The POV of Jack took a while to get use to and could almost be its downfall; but once you do get past that, you will realise this is more a book of discovering the world for the first time. Emma Donoghue really has writing a great book in Room, and while I’ve think this isn’t a perfect book, it is highly recommended.