Emma Donoghue - Room

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent book

I thought this was an excellent book.

The narrative is by Jack, a five-year-old boy who has lived entirely in the same small room with his mother since he was born.  He believes that there is no outside world and that what he sees on TV is fiction.  The circumstances of their incarceration slowly become clear to us and eventually to him.  His responses to his world and the changes which take place are at the heart of this book.

It is a brilliantly told story.  Jack’s voice is utterly convincing virtually throughout and his beautiful, naïve descriptions of things and events give them a real poignancy and really bring them home to the reader.  For Emma Donoghue to maintain Jack’s voice as convincingly as she does is a real tour de force of writing.  The book is also very well structured and paced so that I was utterly gripped by the narrative which is at times humorous, often moving and in places nail-shreddingly exciting.  I found it hard to put the book down and although the last section is perhaps slightly less convincing than the rest, it is engrossing right up to the last page.

I think Room well deserves all the attention it has been given.  It’s not just hype – this really is an excellent, readable and engrossing book.