Book Review:Room

Room Book Review

Ann Thomas

    Room is a groundbreaking novel by Emma Donoghue. Emma was born in Dublin, Ireland. She has written several other bestsellers like Slammerkin. She has received tons of praise regarding room. Malcolm Jones claimed, “Be Warned: once you enter, you’ll be Emma Donoghue’s willing prisoner right down to the last page.”  The genre this novel would fall in is thriller/adrenaline.  The story starts with a child on his 5th birthday. The boy’s name is Jack and he and his mother are confined in a room by the abductor, Old Nick. The book follows Jack in his daily life and is craft fully written through his eyes.

    The plot is genius. The idea of being trapped in a room for so long makes a great book. Donoghue keeps a steady pace throughout the book. It starts off in the room. For some chapters Jacks describes his daily chores and things he does to relieve boredom. Towards the middle of the book Ma tells Jack of a plan to escape. This part seemed weak, because there were many things wrong with it. Why wouldn’t Old Nick check if he was dead before carrying him out? Also who puts a dead child in the back of your truck and not look suspicious? The rest of the book entails how jack struggles to conform to “a normal child”. Jack constantly yearn to go back to the room, because it’s all he’s known. It was his home for so long. New experiences are emerging to Jack daily and the way he deals with them, is what makes this book so interesting. The novel is written in present time but has short bursts when Ma talks of before she was kidnapped. “Well—actually no, I was adopted. She and my dad—you’d call him grandpa. Also I had—I Have—a big brother called Paul.”

    The thing that makes this book stand out from others is the style it is written in. Emma decided to tell the story through a young boy’s eyes. It makes the whole idea of being kidnapped seem less scary. Because to Jack, it’s not scary. It’s all he’s known and he likes having a routine. Jack seems to like being in the room with his mother, he just seems happy. Since Jack is still growing up he doesn’t always say everything right. The reader only knows what Jack sees and hears. He refers to items as a person. “We wake up and the air’s shiverier. Watch says 7:09, he has a battery, that’s his own little power hidden inside him.” Jack is very smart for his age, the author almost made him too smart in some ways.But he doesn’t understand the difference between real life and t.v. This is because he has grown up in the room, so when he sees things on the TV, he assumes they are all fake. Of course, if Jack had grown up in the world he would be aware of all the future that lies ahead of him. But in the room, Jack struggles to understand why he doesn’t have the things he sees on tv. The tv is a metaphor for this fake world he had made for himself. He has fashioned the idea in his head that no world exists out of the room. He and his mom and Old Nick are the only people alive and everything else is fake. At the end of the book Jack has a better understanding of this. Sometimes, Ma gets frustrated at Jack for not understanding.

“But dreams.” I wait. “Are they TV?” She still doesn’t answer. “Do we go into TV for dreaming?”

    Ma is a very interesting character. It takes a lot of inner strength to be in a confined space for 7 years and not give up. It is clearly evident that Ma loves Jack with all her being. She only wants the best for jack. Ma wants him to have a regular childhood like the other kids. Ma’s character changed after the escape. She became snappy with the workers and sometimes Jack. Ma seems the strongest at the beginning of the book, and as the book progresses it seems like her strength is slowly deteriorating. Towards the end, Ma turns to drugs for her relief. She overdosed on her medication. At the very end though, Ma begins to turn herself around after a scare at the hospital. She moves out and finds an apartment for her and Jack to live in. Jack is the constant character, he does not change much while everything around him is shifting. To help him feel safe Jack always keeps his mothers rotten tooth with. The tooth is a symbol of safety, it helps Jack to not be afraid when his mom is not with him.

    Overall, this book is an intriguing read.It earns 4 out of five stars. This is because the escape seems rushed in some ways. Some of the details of it are pretty hard to believe could ever be plausible in real life.But all in all, this book really makes you think about your own life. It makes you thankful about your own life. This novel was a great experience, it;s impossible to know what someone has gone through.Many people tend not to think about abduction but Emma Donoghue brings this sensitive topic to an interesting light.

http://www.roomthebook.com/inside/ This website shows a digital image of the room. It is interactive and you can see just how the author pictured it.