Room by Emma Donoghue

By: Lin Ryals on 9:59:00 AM

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Genre: Fiction

Author: 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. (Info came form here.)

Synopsis: This book is written from the view point of five-year-old Jack. Room is all he's known, it's home. However, his Ma remembers what it was like to be free of her prison where she has been for seven years. Ma wants her son to have more than just one room. He's content but he doesn't know anything else so she plans an escape that relies solely on her five year old son and his bravery to save them. If it does work then will Jack survive the real world out of the confines of his safe home in Room?

Review: I didn't think that I would like this book. It's not my style... it's too real. I mean, it's about a woman who was kidnapped for 7 years and has a child while being held prisoner in an 11'x11' room. Does that sound like something I'd like to read? To make it worse, it's told from the point of view of her 5 yo son. Honestly, there were moments when I just wanted to pick up my 5 year old and hold him and cry over him. Despite the sad parts of this book it was an excellent read. It's a story of a mother and son who manage to pull together to make it through adjusting to life in the outside world despite their sudden jump to fame and having to deal with people and sunlight. Poor Jack had never seen anything except the inside of that room. I LOVED this story!! :)Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a 5 year old to go and cuddle. :)

Rating:  **** Four Stars