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A review by melliferareads
Room by Emma Donoghue
5.0
(More like a 4.5).
I didn't really know what to expect with this book. Of course, after the first part, realizing they were in captivity, I thought this was going to be a book about a courageous escape. And yes, there was a courageous escape -- but this is more about rehabilitation through the never-ending love between a mother and boy. After the first few dozen pages, I already had grown tired of Room and their routine, but the plot changed as soon as I was growing bored with that.
[a:Emma Donoghue|23613|Emma Donoghue|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1298686263p2/23613.jpg] does a fantastic job of portraying the perspective of a five-year-old boy, who knows only the 11"x 11" room in which he was born and raised. There are no windows, and the TV, for him, shows different, non-existent planets that he'll never get to. During the escape, with Ma frantically trying to explain everything to Jack, I was unsure if he would make it, based on the fact that he had never experienced the outside world and that it might be too much for him to handle on the first time out. The description of how shadows are longer in the real world compared to Room, and how he had issues with spatial recognition were small touches that really made the whole thing believable. You realize how traumatic the imprisonment was for Ma, and yet, as Jack explains, "In Room I was safe, and Outside is the scary." You sympathize with both characters, who view the experience in completely opposite ways, and I thought that might tear them apart, but their love for each other kept them close.
Names of Ma and Old Nick are omitted, another small but wonderful touch. To him, these adults have no other name, and the fact that you can't put a name to Ma makes her feel more like a mother figure to the reader, than a 27 year old mother struggling to escape her captor. Strangely, she feels more human due to the lack of her real name.
The book also had several surprises along the way; things that you learn as soon as Jack does. You are learning along with Jack, and Donoghue does a great job of making all these situations seem foreign to you as well. However, there are moments within the novel where you take a step back and realize how messed up the whole thing really is, from an adult point of view.
And for those of you who caught the reference:
"When I grow up my job is going to be a giant, not the eating kind, the kind that catches kids that are falling into the sea maybe and puts them back on land."
I didn't really know what to expect with this book. Of course, after the first part, realizing they were in captivity, I thought this was going to be a book about a courageous escape. And yes, there was a courageous escape -- but this is more about rehabilitation through the never-ending love between a mother and boy. After the first few dozen pages, I already had grown tired of Room and their routine, but the plot changed as soon as I was growing bored with that.
[a:Emma Donoghue|23613|Emma Donoghue|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1298686263p2/23613.jpg] does a fantastic job of portraying the perspective of a five-year-old boy, who knows only the 11"x 11" room in which he was born and raised. There are no windows, and the TV, for him, shows different, non-existent planets that he'll never get to. During the escape, with Ma frantically trying to explain everything to Jack, I was unsure if he would make it, based on the fact that he had never experienced the outside world and that it might be too much for him to handle on the first time out. The description of how shadows are longer in the real world compared to Room, and how he had issues with spatial recognition were small touches that really made the whole thing believable. You realize how traumatic the imprisonment was for Ma, and yet, as Jack explains, "In Room I was safe, and Outside is the scary." You sympathize with both characters, who view the experience in completely opposite ways, and I thought that might tear them apart, but their love for each other kept them close.
Names of Ma and Old Nick are omitted, another small but wonderful touch. To him, these adults have no other name, and the fact that you can't put a name to Ma makes her feel more like a mother figure to the reader, than a 27 year old mother struggling to escape her captor. Strangely, she feels more human due to the lack of her real name.
The book also had several surprises along the way; things that you learn as soon as Jack does. You are learning along with Jack, and Donoghue does a great job of making all these situations seem foreign to you as well. However, there are moments within the novel where you take a step back and realize how messed up the whole thing really is, from an adult point of view.
And for those of you who caught the reference:
"When I grow up my job is going to be a giant, not the eating kind, the kind that catches kids that are falling into the sea maybe and puts them back on land."