Saturday, December 10, 2011

Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 321
Received: Borrowed from a friend

Release Date: August 20, 2010
Buy from Amazon

Goodreads Synopsis:

To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. . . . It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. 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's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer.

Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating--a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child.

My Review:

I have to start out by saying that it has been a long time since I've been this emotional when reading a book. I found myself crying almost the entire time. I think that the last one was The Lovely Bones. This book will definitely be added to be re-read pile just because it is that amazing in my opinion. Emma Dononghue does a great job at writing from Jack's perspective.

Emma Donoghue gives readers hope and makes you feel for Jack, growing up only knowing about Room. I really enjoyed the innocence of Jack throughout the novel, not understanding anything beyond the four walls he has come to know as his home. She really lets the reader into Jack's mind and I really enjoyed how Emma shows Jack making friends with everything in the room because he doesn't know anything else... he believes that there is nothing outside of Room and believes that everything on TV is make believe.

Even though the entire book is written in Jack's voice, the reader still gets to understand Ma, how she will do anything to protect him. Emma describes in great detail the surroundings and the feelings of the characters.

I knew coming into this book that would be an intense read just from the description, but Emma was able to add in some humour to all the darkness surrounding the characters. This is a great story to show that people push through because of someone else, everything that Jack's Ma does throughout the novel is to protect him, and you understand that early on. As a writer Emma does a great job at pulling at the readers heartstrings and really getting the emotional feeling of what the characters are going through!

Rating: 5 out of 5 comfy couches!

Other books by Emma Donoghue:



2 comments:

  1. Excellent review my dear! See, this is the kind of book I would normally not even look at in a bookstore. Why? Because I am a helpless cover junkie and if the cover fails to catch my attention, I just zoom right past it. Stupid and oh-so-wrong! Thank god I stopped by to read your review, now I know I have to add this to my TBR, like, RIGHT NOW! I love profoundly meaningful and emotional books, this one sounds like a deep, thought-provoking read and I can't wait tor read it! :D

    Thanks so much for reviewing it, you rock!!! <3

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  2. Wonderful review. I was close to tears for much of the first half of the novel then I was on the edge of my seat during the suspense of the attempted escape. So much was at stake! I can't imagine an adult woman having to put her life in the hands of her 5 year old son. What a masterpiece of a novel.

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