Book Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

What if the scope of your entire world were a 12 foot by 12 foot room? Such is the case for Jack, the 5 year old narrator of Room by Emma Donoghue. To Jack, Room is simply a place where he and his mother live, eat, bathe, and learn. The idea that there might be life outside of Room simply hasn't occurred to Jack because he's never seen it.

To Jack's mother, the room in which she has been held captive for the past seven years has a very different connotation than it does to Jack. Ma longs to escape and to provide better for Jack--but what if her plans don't work...and sometimes even more frightening, what if they do?

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I had been on the waitlist for Room at my local library for almost a year. Recently, I finally broke down and bought it with a gift card, because it appeared that there was STILL quite a long wait ahead of me. Room was one of the first books that I've actually purchased brand new in almost a year, so I was hoping that it would be worth it.

I suppose it was--it's a good book, and I'm glad to own it, though it isn't without flaws. However, like a lot of the books that I've read lately, I feel like the less you know going into in, the better...so I'll refrain from saying a lot about the plot itself. That said, one of the more difficult things for me was not the plot at all, but getting used to the "voice" of the narrator, five-year-old Jack. Much of the book is made up of sentences like, “Ma leans out of Bed to switch on Lamp, he makes everything light up whoosh.” I confess--I have a hard time getting past random capitalization when I'm reading, and it is abundant in this book, as Jack tends to name every object that exists as if it were a proper pronoun.  

Still, that minor irritant aside, I thought that this book did a remarkable job with giving the reader "adult" information through the eyes of a child narrator--most often, the reader is given the opportunity to read between the lines rather than directly supplied information by the 5-year-old narrator that he probably wouldn't know or understand, and I appreciated that. 

I actually think this would be a perfect book for a book-club--even though it's not a personal favorite of mine, it does lend itself to conversation very well. Overall, it's worth a read!