Book Review: Room is a difficult book to discuss without spoilers, so this will be a discussion with spoilers. Sorry. I only knew a little about the book before I read it, which added to my enjoyment. Of course now, with the popularity of the book and movie, it's going to be hard for future readers not to be spoiled somewhat. The basic story is that a young woman is kidnapped by a rapist and held prisoner in a small, sound-proofed garden shed, where she gives birth to her son. Room is told from the point of view of the precocious five-year-old boy, Jack, with all the insights and limitations resulting from that. He has only ever spoken with his mother ("Ma"), and so has an almost adult vocabulary, but he also has the speech deficits that a mother would tolerate. Jack has only ever lived in this one room and everything, including the few inanimate objects such as a table or a rug, are personalized and humanized. Irish writer Emma Donoghue has completely captured the tone of Jack, Ma, and Room, and the strength of this voice propels the story and the reader through the whole of the book. I truly felt like I was living in that room with Jack; I began to feel as tho every object and every bit of food was precious, and my world was 11 feet square. Claustrophobic. The story and tone was credible and compelling; it felt so realistic it began to creep into my mind. The book is divided in halves: before and after the rescue. How Jack escapes the room is problematic on a couple levels, but I think Ma hoped Jack would get out earlier than he did, when there would have been more people around on the street, and she knew Jack was more than an average five-year-old. The attempt also showed her absolute desperation, her willingness to risk anything to escape the room for several reasons, not the least that Jack is getting older and his life will be in danger. I found the first half of Room more engaging than the second, but there was still plenty in the slower second half of the book to keep me reading. I think readers might prefer either of the two halves of the story. The story of life after the rescue was again quite believable tho more subtle. The emotions and stress (everything is not suddenly perfect after the rescue) involved in adjusting to life after the room let's us see our everyday world anew, through Jack's eyes. Even in the abundant outside world, every little thing (a leaf, a bee) is magical to Jack. We learn that Ma's name is Sharon, and although Jack is the narrator and we see everything from his point of view, I think that made Sharon's story even stronger. We read Jack's words reflecting his limited understanding of what is going on in the room (and afterwards), but we as omniscient readers understand more, and that makes Sharon's suffering even more resonant, because we read the full measure of pain, misery, and victimization into the story, but we also see her struggle, her strength, resilience, and determination to overcome the prison in ways that Jack cannot. Even one of the creepy aspects of Room, the nursing, worked to show the bonds between Jack and Ma, their individual needs, nourishment on other levels. The ending surprised me, but was just as it should have been. Emma Donoghue has written a very quick read, a kind of thriller, one you may be unable to put down. I read it in two or three sittings. Room is a tour de force, by which I mean the author has taken a specific focus, a limited scope, and made it into something much bigger and more powerful. Room is a solid and successful story, well done, and a great read. [4 Stars]
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