A review by ricksilva
Room by Emma Donoghue

dark hopeful informative inspiring sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Told from the point-of-view of a five-year-old boy who has lived his whole life in a single room, the room where his mother has been held prisoner by a kidnapper for seven years. The beginning of the book does a great job of building tension around the scenario, and the mother comes up with an extremely dangerous plan to try to escape, but one in which her child must play the crucial role. And then the story departs completely from the pacing one would expect from a thriller, focusing instead on the aftermath and the lingering effects of trauma on mother and son as they try to adapt to their return to the world.

There are a few spots where it felt like the author was scrambling for "okay, now what else could go wrong?", but the voice of Jack, the protagonist and narrator, is very engaging, and the story does a tremendous job of getting maximum impact out of small details. 

It was also nice to see some breaking of standard thriller tropes: The villain is not near-infallible, and really isn't even a major focus of the story. The cops and medical people are competent and compassionate, and the supporting cast is provided a good degree of depth of character, even through what we observe by way of Jack.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings