Room : a novel

Title:

Room : a novel

Author:

Donoghue, Emma, 1969-

Personal Author:

Donoghue, Emma, 1969-

ISBN:

9780316098335

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Little, Brown, 2010.

Physical Description:

ix, 321 pages ; 25 cm.

Abstract:

Told entirely in the language of five-year-old Jack, describes the bond between parent and child, and what it means to journey from one world to another.

Subject Term:

Boys -- Fiction.

Mother and child -- Fiction.

Kidnapping -- Fiction.

Psychopaths -- Fiction.

Escapes -- Fiction.

Genre:

Psychological fiction.

Suspense fiction.

Summary:

Told entirely in the language of five-year-old Jack, describes the bond between parent and child, and what it means to journey from one world to another.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
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The award-winning bestseller that became one of the most talked about and memorable novels of the decade, Room is "utterly gripping...a heart-stopping novel" ( San Francisco Chronicle ). Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time.

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.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Talented, versatile Donoghue (The Sealed Letter, 2008, etc.) relates a searing tale of survival and recovery, in the voice of a five-year-old boy.Jack has never known a life beyond Room. His Ma gave birth to him on Rug; the stains are still there. At night, he has to stay in Wardrobe when Old Nick comes to visit. Still, he and Ma have a comfortable routine, with daily activities like Phys Ed and Laundry. Jack knows how to read and do math, but has no idea the images he sees on the television represent a real world. We gradually learn that Ma (we never know her name) was abducted and imprisoned in a backyard shed when she was 19; her captor brings them food and other necessities, but he's capricious. An ugly incident after Jack attracts Old Nick's unwelcome attention renews Ma's determination to liberate herself and her son; the book's first half climaxes with a nail-biting escape. Donoghue brilliantly shows mother and son grappling with very different issues as they adjust to freedom. "In Room I was safe and Outside is the scary," Jack thinks, unnerved by new things like showers, grass and window shades. He clings to the familiar objects rescued from Room (their abuser has been found), while Ma flinches at these physical reminders of her captivity. Desperate to return to normalcy, she has to grapple with a son who has never known normalcy and isn't sure he likes it. In the story's most heartbreaking moments, it seems that Ma may be unable to live with the choices she made to protect Jack. But his narration reveals that she's nurtured a smart, perceptive and willful boyodd, for sure, but resilient, and surely Ma can find that resilience in herself. A haunting final scene doesn't promise quick cures, but shows Jack and Ma putting the past behind them.Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching and at times unexpectedly funny.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review