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A review by hellocookie
Room by Emma Donoghue
3.0
My first impressions of Room were that of annoyance. The book is from the perspective of a child who was born into a Room. He has never been outside of the room and he doesn't know of anything going on around him, except for what he sees on TV. Only, he thinks that it's all fiction because he doesn't know any better. He lives there with his mother, who when she was a young woman, was kidnapped and held captive.
During her captivity, her captor impregnates her and she has a child while being held against her will. This child is named Jack and he grows up thinking that the strange man who visits once or twice a week, his mother and Room are all that exists.
The perspective is interesting and bold for a story with such a dark plot, but I find it very distracting. I know that I'm supposed to sympathize with the child in his ignorance, but I find it very distracting trying to feel the pain that the mother must be going through with Jack as our narrator. The child dialogue is sometimes hard to follow since she's trying to write as though she were Jack.
All in all, I found the book captivating. Once I got to about the half way mark, I found that I couldn't put it down, but getting to that point was a bit of a struggle. In the end, I found myself enjoying the story as a whole... at least as much as someone can enjoy a story with such horrific circumstances, but I still think it could've yielded some improvements.
During her captivity, her captor impregnates her and she has a child while being held against her will. This child is named Jack and he grows up thinking that the strange man who visits once or twice a week, his mother and Room are all that exists.
The perspective is interesting and bold for a story with such a dark plot, but I find it very distracting. I know that I'm supposed to sympathize with the child in his ignorance, but I find it very distracting trying to feel the pain that the mother must be going through with Jack as our narrator. The child dialogue is sometimes hard to follow since she's trying to write as though she were Jack.
All in all, I found the book captivating. Once I got to about the half way mark, I found that I couldn't put it down, but getting to that point was a bit of a struggle. In the end, I found myself enjoying the story as a whole... at least as much as someone can enjoy a story with such horrific circumstances, but I still think it could've yielded some improvements.