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When I have a writing deadline approaching, you'll probably find me in the kitchen. It's horrible, I know, but when I work with a deadline, I tend... Continue »
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eBook editions

Room

by Emma Donoghue

Room Cover

ISBN13: 9780316098335
ISBN10: 0316098337
All Product Details

 

Awards

Staff Top 5s 2010 2010 Powell's Staff Top 5s
The Rooster 2011 Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee
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Staff Pick

Emma Donoghue is a truly versatile writer. Although utterly unlike Slammerkin and her other books, Room earns a place of honor while distinguishing itself with a gripping subject that never sinks into gloom, but always floats on a current of Donoghue's signature creativity.
Recommended by Hank, Powells.com

Review-A-Day

"Reading Room is an experience that you'll never forget. It's difficult to imagine a more poignant portrait of two lives — all splashed with primary colors but deeply shadowed by pain and anguish. Your feelings are stretched so thin that at points, you're not sure if you can keep reading through to the end. Yet, you're compelled to, driven by the hope for survival and redemption, and, ultimately, you arrive, profoundly affected." Heidi Mager, Powells.com (Read the entire Powells.com review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. 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. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

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.

Review:

"At the start of Donoghue's powerful new novel, narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. Seen entirely through Jack's eyes and childlike perceptions, the developments in this novel — there are enough plot twists to provide a dramatic arc of breathtaking suspense — are astonishing. Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful, creating exercise games, makeshift toys, and reading and math lessons to fill their days. And while Donoghue (Slammerkin) brilliantly portrays the psyche of a child raised in captivity, the story's intensity cranks up dramatically when, halfway through the novel and after a nail-biting escape attempt, Jack is introduced to the outside world. While there have been several true-life stories of women and children held captive, little has been written about the pain of re-entry, and Donoghue's bravado in investigating that potentially terrifying transformation grants the novel a frightening resonance that will keep readers rapt. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

Review:

"Talented, versatile Donoghue relates a searing tale of survival and recovery, in the voice of a five-year-old boy....Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching and at times unexpectedly funny." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Review:

"one of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year.... You need to enter this small, harrowing place prepared only to have your own world expanded." Washington Post

Review:

"An emotionally draining read, yet at the same time impossible to put down, it has all the makings of a modern classic. Donoghue's inventive storytelling is flawless and absorbing" Boston Globe

Review:

"[Room] is a triumph, a celebration of the lengths we go to for our loved ones, and the comfort in the skewed world that relationships create." Oregonian

Synopsis:

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.
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About the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the bestselling Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Landing, Life Mask, Hood, and Stirfry. Her story collections are The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, Kissing the Witch, and Touchy Subjects. She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two small children.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 90 comments:
MamaHolly, January 14, 2012 (view all comments by MamaHolly)
This is by far the best book that I read in 2011. Once I started I couldn't put it down and let my kids eat cereal for dinner so that I could get in a few more pages before bath time.
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echoowner, May 15, 2011 (view all comments by echoowner)
A couple surprises within an interesting concept using a viewpoint that seems reasonable, given the subject. Portrayal of a convincing child is harder than it sounds, and, for me, this book is a great example of "almost there." Enjoyed the story, the "unlying" revelations and development of Jack's social skills were especially good.
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Gypsi, March 8, 2011 (view all comments by Gypsi)

Room is told in the first person point of view by Jack, who just turned five years old on the day the book opened.

Today I'm five. I was four last night going to sleep in Wardrobe, but when I wake up in Bed in the dark I'm changed to five, abracadabra.

Jack lives alone with his mother, and as he is her only companion and source of conversation, he has an advanced vocabulary and conversation skills which are obvious from his narration. Also because his mother ("Ma") is his only source of information about the world, except for minimal television, his is unusually naive and at times backward for his age. Donoghue does an excellent job giving Jack a voice that is at once believable and emotionally stirring.

Through Jack's eyes we view his world: one room and Ma. He narrates an average day (though a bit different as it's his birthday) for the reader, not realizing that there is anything unusual about the way his days play out. The reader however, sees what Jack doesn't: that Ma is making enormous sacrifices to keep Jack's world as "normal" as possible.

I don't want to spoil it by telling much of the plot, beyond what might be read on the blurb, but I will say that reading this I am reminded of Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful, in that a parent is making enormous sacrifices that the child never sees, and is able to live somewhat normally and happily as a result.

Room is five chapters, but essentially three parts. First, Jack gives a picture of daily life. Heartbreaking for the reader, matter of fact for him, as he tells about the things he and Ma do during an average day. Without realizing it, he shows Ma as a woman struggling with mental illness, doing the best she can to hold it together for her son, while he is an exuberant, generally happy, nearly typical five year old, doing five year old things.

The second part of the book is when Jack and Ma leave Room for Outside. This is very traumatic for them both, in differing ways. Jack has never been Outside or seen other people and the sensory overload is well told in his voice, as is Ma's attempts to stay mentally strong while suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome--though through his eyes the experience looks quite different.

The last part of the book is the triumphant finale. It is again beautifully told through Jack's voice as he and Ma succeed in be "scrave" (brave even though scared) and life begins fresh for them.

I have seen many negative comments, written about such trifling things, that I was shocked. Room is the most fantastic book I have read in some time; definitely the best I've read in 2011, but possibly the best I've read in 2010 as well. It is heartbreaking at times, yes, but it is also such a hopeful book, a book of triumph and love. I highly recom
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780316098335
Author:
Donoghue, Emma
Publisher:
Little Brown and Company
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Publication Date:
20100931
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Pages:
336
Dimensions:
9.30x6.20x1.20 in. 1.19 lbs.
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Related Aisles

Room New Hardcover
0 stars - 0 reviews
$24.99 In Stock
Product details 336 pages Little Brown and Company - English 9780316098335 Reviews:
"Staff Pick" by ,

Emma Donoghue is a truly versatile writer. Although utterly unlike Slammerkin and her other books, Room earns a place of honor while distinguishing itself with a gripping subject that never sinks into gloom, but always floats on a current of Donoghue's signature creativity.

by Hank
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "At the start of Donoghue's powerful new novel, narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. Seen entirely through Jack's eyes and childlike perceptions, the developments in this novel — there are enough plot twists to provide a dramatic arc of breathtaking suspense — are astonishing. Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful, creating exercise games, makeshift toys, and reading and math lessons to fill their days. And while Donoghue (Slammerkin) brilliantly portrays the psyche of a child raised in captivity, the story's intensity cranks up dramatically when, halfway through the novel and after a nail-biting escape attempt, Jack is introduced to the outside world. While there have been several true-life stories of women and children held captive, little has been written about the pain of re-entry, and Donoghue's bravado in investigating that potentially terrifying transformation grants the novel a frightening resonance that will keep readers rapt. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)
"Review A Day" by , "Reading Room is an experience that you'll never forget. It's difficult to imagine a more poignant portrait of two lives — all splashed with primary colors but deeply shadowed by pain and anguish. Your feelings are stretched so thin that at points, you're not sure if you can keep reading through to the end. Yet, you're compelled to, driven by the hope for survival and redemption, and, ultimately, you arrive, profoundly affected." (Read the entire Powells.com review)
"Review" by , "Talented, versatile Donoghue relates a searing tale of survival and recovery, in the voice of a five-year-old boy....Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching and at times unexpectedly funny."
"Review" by , "one of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year.... You need to enter this small, harrowing place prepared only to have your own world expanded."
"Review" by , "An emotionally draining read, yet at the same time impossible to put down, it has all the makings of a modern classic. Donoghue's inventive storytelling is flawless and absorbing"
"Review" by , "[Room] is a triumph, a celebration of the lengths we go to for our loved ones, and the comfort in the skewed world that relationships create."
"Synopsis" by , 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.
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