The story of Room by Emma Donoghue is moving and touching in the end, and I can’t say how much I appreciate the author’s portrait of the mother and child bond, which is unshakable, and is what stands out for me more than anything else. This story is certainly haunting, and the characters did hang around in my head for some time. They are understanding, and as helpful as possible, but often couldn’t grasp the nightmare Jack and Ma have survived, while others can’t cope at all, which could have made for some very interesting characterizations if they had been fleshed out more. The secondary characters, seemed to barely reach the surface as though they were only in my peripheral vision.

I thought the first part of Room by Emma Donoghue had the strongest writing, but the second part was interesting in its consequences for both Jack and his mom. I won’t reveal what happens next, but the story abruptly shifts in tone after halfway through the book. The action picks up fairly quickly when his mom plans an escape attempt. She created a daily routine to keep her son occupied and tried to make the situation into a game for him. To survive, she frequently had to have sleep with Old Nick, and Jack was born 5 years ago. The story is told from Jack’s point of view, and details of why they are there are slowly revealed: His mother had been abducted off the street years earlier by the angry man, nicknamed Old Nick, and she has been held in the room since then. Sometimes an angry man comes and gets in the bed with his mom during these times Jack hides in a wardrobe. They have a TV, but he doesn’t think anything on it is real – the only thing that’s real is what’s in the room. We learn that Jack lives in a small room with his mom, and that he’s never been outside of the room. Room by Emma Donoghue opens with Jack announcing that he’s 5 years old today. Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. It is where he was born and grew up it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room by Emma Donoghue is a celebration of resilience-and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world…. Theme: Isolation, Growing Up, Parenting, Voyeurism and the Media

Major Characters: Jack Tenpenny, Ma, Old Nick

Emma donoghue books