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paroof's review against another edition
4.0
I didn't think I would like this book. But it was on so many "best of" lists and then there it was on sale on Audible... and I cannot pass up a sale... so I bought it. It was read by the author, who does a fabulous job. I was pulled into Romy's life even as I didn't want to be. Sometimes it upset me and I had to take a break. But I always went back, needing to know more. The story is heartbreaking, and brave, and sad.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
bels's review against another edition
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
poopierobroby's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
amyhungerford's review against another edition
2.0
I think my exceptions for this book were way too high because this was a colossal let down.
eldermax's review against another edition
5.0
The Mars Room is a good book and an important book (ie one that might teach you something) and one that left me in a sad and contemplative state at the end. It's about women in prison, what got them in prison, what their life is like in prison, what they left behind when they entered prison. Where Orange is the New Black mixes in humor with prison life, there is nothing to smile about with these women some of whom will spend out their natural lives incarciated. The headline of a review in The New York Times called it "blackly comic" but if there are comic elements they really didn't click with me.
The book opens and closes with Romy Leslie Hall, inmate W314159, serving two consecutive life sentences plus six years. Romy did what she was convicted of but the account of her trial and legal counsel nake you frustrated, if not angry with the legal system. You might even be able to put yourself in her place. She could have had a future after after prison if things had been handled differently.
Romy is also a loving mother albeit one who made a lot of bad decisions. Many of her flashbacks are about her son Jackson and this humanizes her.
For all her guilt, Romy is still an intelligent and appealing if not likable character. With a poor home life and wild and lawless adolescence, Romy fell into drug abuse and prostitution and work as a stripper. The Mars Room in the book's title is a San Francisco strip club where she worked. It isn't a bad gig, relatively speaking, except for the regular who becomes obsessed with her and her stalker. There is nothing glamorous about The Mars Room; it is a gritty, dirty, hostile environment.
In prison, as Romy tries to keep her head down and learn the ropes, the author explains administrative segregation (or ad seq and called the SHU in Orange is the New Black), how to communicate between cells, make prison hooch, work programs, racial divides, the contempt and hostility of the guards, and he day-to-day experience of life behind bars, and how certain behaviors become automatic. At one point Romy observes "I wasn't much of a liar before prison.". She has this poignant observation:
The Mars Room has an unusual structure that pulled me into the reading experience. It isn''t linear and a narrative might be interrupted with a reflection on some other event. That doesn't make sense, I know but I'm not sure how to describe it. Within a chapter you have section inserted in the narrative with short, black, dividing bars. I like this technique; it made me curious what was going to appear next. The Romy storyline jumps around in time between Romy growing up and turning to prostitution and stripping and her life in prison.
In addition to the main Romy storyline the book gives us the stories of other people who interact with Romy. There is Gordon, a teacher, dissatisfied with his life, who lives in an isolated cabin and reads the writings of Unibomber Ted Kaczynski, her cellies, several death row inmates and, through one, Betty, the story of an ex-cop himself now an inmate.
This is a hard book for me to write about. While I enjoyed it very much, I can't put my finger exactly on why I enjoyed it. There is a lot going on with several stories weaving around the narrative. A review cited below wouldprefer the book have a strong single plot. The lack of a plot was not something that bothered me. In fact, it kept me interesed to see what would be revealed next.
Kushner doesn't glorify prison or try to build unwarranted sympathy for the characters. These are people who did bad things but the author does help us see them as people. Kushner is certainly an excellent writer who knows how to tell a story and I intend to read her other works. As I said at the top, it left me feeling sad that such stories and situations happen and will continue to happen.
The book opens and closes with Romy Leslie Hall, inmate W314159, serving two consecutive life sentences plus six years. Romy did what she was convicted of but the account of her trial and legal counsel nake you frustrated, if not angry with the legal system. You might even be able to put yourself in her place. She could have had a future after after prison if things had been handled differently.
Romy is also a loving mother albeit one who made a lot of bad decisions. Many of her flashbacks are about her son Jackson and this humanizes her.
For all her guilt, Romy is still an intelligent and appealing if not likable character. With a poor home life and wild and lawless adolescence, Romy fell into drug abuse and prostitution and work as a stripper. The Mars Room in the book's title is a San Francisco strip club where she worked. It isn't a bad gig, relatively speaking, except for the regular who becomes obsessed with her and her stalker. There is nothing glamorous about The Mars Room; it is a gritty, dirty, hostile environment.
In prison, as Romy tries to keep her head down and learn the ropes, the author explains administrative segregation (or ad seq and called the SHU in Orange is the New Black), how to communicate between cells, make prison hooch, work programs, racial divides, the contempt and hostility of the guards, and he day-to-day experience of life behind bars, and how certain behaviors become automatic. At one point Romy observes "I wasn't much of a liar before prison.". She has this poignant observation:
You go to ad seg and you don't stop having feelings. You hear a woman cry and it's real. It's not a courtroom, where they ask all the pertinent and wrong questions, the niggling repeated demands for details, to sort contradictions and establish intent. The quiet of the cell is where the real question lingers in the mind of a woman. The one true question, impossible to answer. The why did you. The how. Not the practical how, the other one. How could you have done such a thing. How could you.
The Mars Room has an unusual structure that pulled me into the reading experience. It isn''t linear and a narrative might be interrupted with a reflection on some other event. That doesn't make sense, I know but I'm not sure how to describe it. Within a chapter you have section inserted in the narrative with short, black, dividing bars. I like this technique; it made me curious what was going to appear next. The Romy storyline jumps around in time between Romy growing up and turning to prostitution and stripping and her life in prison.
In addition to the main Romy storyline the book gives us the stories of other people who interact with Romy. There is Gordon, a teacher, dissatisfied with his life, who lives in an isolated cabin and reads the writings of Unibomber Ted Kaczynski, her cellies, several death row inmates and, through one, Betty, the story of an ex-cop himself now an inmate.
This is a hard book for me to write about. While I enjoyed it very much, I can't put my finger exactly on why I enjoyed it. There is a lot going on with several stories weaving around the narrative. A review cited below wouldprefer the book have a strong single plot. The lack of a plot was not something that bothered me. In fact, it kept me interesed to see what would be revealed next.
Kushner doesn't glorify prison or try to build unwarranted sympathy for the characters. These are people who did bad things but the author does help us see them as people. Kushner is certainly an excellent writer who knows how to tell a story and I intend to read her other works. As I said at the top, it left me feeling sad that such stories and situations happen and will continue to happen.
kolson20's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars. This book took me a long time to get through because of all the scene changes. It was a very choppy read for me and I had to force myself to read it until about the last 30%. I always love stories about prison, just because learning about the atmosphere is so interesting. I liked that aspect of it, but other than that, the story fell flat for me.
emleemay's review against another edition
2.0
2 1/2 stars. It's taken me a long time to admit that I just didn't like [b:The Mars Room|36373648|The Mars Room|Rachel Kushner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1524991696s/36373648.jpg|57520253] very much. Even as I was struggling to keep my eyes on the page, keep reading, and not get distracted by that piece of fluff on the floor, I was doing my best to write a positive review in my head.
I thought I would love it. It felt like I should. What doesn't sound great about a gritty prison novel dissecting class, wealth and other power structures in the penal system? Diverse characters, complicated family dynamics, and unfair bullshit that sees poor, working class women given shoddy legal representation? Sign me up to be pissed off (in the way that leads to 5-star ratings).
But I found this book so disjointed, aloof and boring. Even Romy's first-person chapters felt distant and impersonal, like she was looking down on events from far away and not living them. Perhaps this is some kind of literary technique, but it did nothing except make me feel completely disconnected.
I understand the importance of [b:The Mars Room|36373648|The Mars Room|Rachel Kushner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1524991696s/36373648.jpg|57520253]. It takes a look at how socioeconomic factors affect rate of incarceration, the quality of legal defense received, and recidivism. The protagonist, 28-year-old Romy Hall, killed a man who stalked her incessantly for months, but the jury didn't see any of that. All they saw was the brutality of the crime. Now Romy is serving consecutive life sentences in a California women's correctional facility.
These themes speak to something close to my heart-- the way poverty and background can deeply affect all aspects of a person's life. I'm very intrigued (and angered) by economic power structures, and I'm particularly interested in Marxist Feminism. This book didn't have to work hard to sell me on its point; it just had to keep me interested in its characters and the story being told. And, sadly, that's where it failed.
The story didn't flow. It jumped around between perspectives, and between first and third person, in short choppy chapters. Obviously any person with a heart would feel sorry for Romy, but that's about the extent of the emotional connection. I felt a kind of universal empathy for her, but no personal attachment to her circumstances. I also don't know why Doc's chapters were necessary.
It's strange how I felt like Kushner showed a lot of awful things happening, but without conveying any of the emotion you would expect to go with them. But maybe it's just me. The early reviews have been glowing.
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I thought I would love it. It felt like I should. What doesn't sound great about a gritty prison novel dissecting class, wealth and other power structures in the penal system? Diverse characters, complicated family dynamics, and unfair bullshit that sees poor, working class women given shoddy legal representation? Sign me up to be pissed off (in the way that leads to 5-star ratings).
But I found this book so disjointed, aloof and boring. Even Romy's first-person chapters felt distant and impersonal, like she was looking down on events from far away and not living them. Perhaps this is some kind of literary technique, but it did nothing except make me feel completely disconnected.
I understand the importance of [b:The Mars Room|36373648|The Mars Room|Rachel Kushner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1524991696s/36373648.jpg|57520253]. It takes a look at how socioeconomic factors affect rate of incarceration, the quality of legal defense received, and recidivism. The protagonist, 28-year-old Romy Hall, killed a man who stalked her incessantly for months, but the jury didn't see any of that. All they saw was the brutality of the crime. Now Romy is serving consecutive life sentences in a California women's correctional facility.
These themes speak to something close to my heart-- the way poverty and background can deeply affect all aspects of a person's life. I'm very intrigued (and angered) by economic power structures, and I'm particularly interested in Marxist Feminism. This book didn't have to work hard to sell me on its point; it just had to keep me interested in its characters and the story being told. And, sadly, that's where it failed.
The story didn't flow. It jumped around between perspectives, and between first and third person, in short choppy chapters. Obviously any person with a heart would feel sorry for Romy, but that's about the extent of the emotional connection. I felt a kind of universal empathy for her, but no personal attachment to her circumstances. I also don't know why Doc's chapters were necessary.
It's strange how I felt like Kushner showed a lot of awful things happening, but without conveying any of the emotion you would expect to go with them. But maybe it's just me. The early reviews have been glowing.
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dstaples's review against another edition
2.0
There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed, but these parts were strung together by pages that I either couldn't follow or didn't care about.
spookyelm's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5