ROOM BY EMMA DONOGHUE - REVIEW

pic and description taken from Goodreads

Description:

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

My Review / Thoughts:

I was given this book by a friend for our book club read for the month.  Every one was raving about it, so I was excited to read it.   Unfortunately I didn't find it as "awesome" as every one else does, but every book affects every person differently.

The story itself is fantastic.  Ma was an amazing character, and so was Jack.  I love how Ma protected her son from this horrible life.  Jack thought everything they did was great, and he loved the room where they lived.  Which he happens to call "Room".  Everything is alive to Jack, and I can see how it would be being it's the only thing he has ever encountered in his life.  

Ma, is awesome at teaching Jack his letter, numbers, everything.  He is very intelligent for a 5yr old child. 

I love the commitment Ma has to her son.  She loves him with everything she has.  She protects him with everything she has.  She did the best she could while being held captive for 7 years.  Can you even imagine?  I cannot.

Like I said the story is touching, horrible, and wonderful, I just really wish it wasn't told from the 5 yr old view.  I know that is what everyone loves about the book, and it would have been fine for part of it.  I just really wish the story was told from the mothers point of view.  Jack's is interesting, but having to read a five yr old speak for 300+ pages was a little too annoying for me.  I love children don't get me wrong, but I don't like reading books that don't have proper grammar.  I know sounds silly, but it is the only complaint I have about the book.  The mothers voice probably would have touched me even more.  I just think her explaining what was going on would have been harder, yet more realistic to read. 

My Rating:

About the Author:

pic and bio taken from Goodreads

Emma is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue. She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin, and in 1997 a PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. Since the age of 23, Donoghue has earned her living as a full-time writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their son and daughter.