Room

I don't remember where I read about this book, but it was described as sensational, and it was. But it was also a strange book. It kind of feels like two books stuck together - the first book is the story of the escape from Room, and the second book the story of life after the escape. After the escape, the second half of the book feels like an extended epilogue. Or the first book might feel like a very long exposition for the second one. But somehow together there's something a bit jarring about the transition.
Writing from the perspective of a child is a bit like an actor doing the role of someone with an intellectual or mental disability. You can bungle it up real bad, but if you don't completely botch it, it's a sure way to get heaps of praise. Donoghue pulls it off well in the book. But it was another voice that troubled me when I read the book - that of anyone from the media. Clearly, Donoghue has a very poor view of anyone from the media, but this leads her at times to write things that seems completely unrealistic in an otherwise very believable world. She doesn't settle for presenting journalists as insensitive and jaded. They appear to be deliberately mean. The most obvious example, particularly since it's referred to a number of times subsequently, is the "goes down stairs like a monkey" quote from a newspaper article about Jack and his mother. No journalist will use such an analogy (if only because it doesn't make sense), and it seems designed to do nothing but raise the reader's anger at the media. In an otherwise emotionally precise and engaging book, it felt like a very crude way to get an emotional response from the reader, and the many reminders of it subsequently only detracted from an extraordinary experience.

This compelling story is told from a five year old boy's point of view. Jack lives in Room, where he was born and has lived his entire life with Ma. During these five years, Room is Jack's world, he knows nothing about Outside. To Jack, Room is where he is safe.

To Ma, Room is the prison she has endured for seven years, after being kidnapped, raped, and locked away in Old Nick's backyard shed. They are given the necessities--food, clothing, heat, and they do have a TV and running water. In this tiny space, Ma does her very best with Jack, keeping him occupied, teaching him to read, allowing him small amounts of Television, such as Dora the Explorer. But soon, none of this will be enough. Ma knows Old Nick will not keep them alive forever--and he certainly is not going to let them out. Breaking out is not an option, either; Old Nick's security system and his shed's camouflage make discovery and rescue by an outside party impossible.

Ma has a plan, and now that Jack is old enough, the two of them make it happen. But this is only half the story. When they do make it Outside, they are confronted with a storm of media attention, legal issues, therapy, and a family that has undergone changes since Ma was kidnapped off a college campus at the age of nineteen. Both Jack and Ma have problems that could not have been predicted.

We never learn Ma's name, because this is Jack's story, and with his extraordinarily well-developed language skills, he's very adept at processing everything the grownups say around him and very good at asking the right questions. And he seems wise beyond his years in that he knows exactly what his needs are. The last scene in the book is an event that Jack has requested, and it effects the perfect closure for him, and probably helps Ma, as well. Jack really is her superhero.

An abundance of interesting issues are presented in this story, and this novel would probably make for an interesting discussion.

It took me a short while to get used to Jack's narrative style but once I was, I loved the story.

I thought the best part of the book was while Jack and Ma were still in Room but I think that may be because Jack felt secure there. I think his insecurity and confusion made his telling the tale more difficult.

The way the author used Jack's voice to describe what the world appeared to be to him, an outsider, was fantastic. A great way to use the Sociological Eye, I thought.

I was reduced to tears several times - either for happy or sad or just by the powerful emotions the words pulled from me. I think part of it was that I'm a very emotional person but part of it was that I kept imagining my young son in Jack's place.

Room was a great, and at times difficult, read. I highly recommend it.