BOOK REVIEW: Room by Emma Donahue

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the world. It’s where he was born. It’s where he and Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. There are endless wonders that let loose Jack’s imagination: the snake under Bed that he constructs out of eggshells; the imaginary world projected through the TV; the coziness of Wardrobe, where Ma tucks him in safely at night, in case Old Nick comes. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it’s the prison where she’s been held for seven long years, since she was nineteen. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in that eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But Jack’s curiosity is building alongside Ma’s own desperation, and she knows that Room cannot contain either indefinitely.

I'll be honest: this book has been on my TBR FOREVER ! Really, I was beginning to think I should just remove it because it didn't look like I was ever going to get to it. Then I heard it was being made into a movie and the trailer made me cry. Yeah, that was all it took. I just knew I had to read this before watching the movie.

This book is about a girl who was kidnapped at nineteen and held prisoner in a single room. She has a child, Jack and the story is told from his point of view. I don't know how the author was able to reach inside the mind of a five year old so easily, but she nailed it. But Jack isn't any normal five year old. He has never been Outside, he has never seen another soul except his mom (and sometimes the man holding them prisoner, who he calls Old Nick). His mom has worked hard to preserve his innocence, so he thinks that everything he sees on the TV is fake and he doesn't realize that there is a whole world beyond the room he thinks of as home.

The choice to tell the story from Jack's POV was an interesting one. There were so many times where you could tell as an adult that bad things were happening, but because they were told through the eyes of Jack, they were much more bearable to watch. I feel like if this book had been told through the eyes of his mom, this book would have been so much heavier and so much more difficult to read. It did take about 30 pages or so to really get into Jack's voice. It's not easy knowing what he is talking about at times. But I began to read between the lines with certain things and I was able to understand what he was talking about. This story was so incredibly emotional and I felt so much empathy for the mom. You could see her increasing frustration with her need to escape. At the same time, Jack felt no need to leave Room because that has been his whole world for all of his life. I could not put this book down because I was dying to know whether they ever left the Room. Beautiful and emotional and heartbreaking, this is such a must read!

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one!! I am kicking myself for not reading this one sooner. I know it's still early in the year, but I have a feeling this will be one of my favorites.