Books: Emma Donoghue’s Riveting “Room”

Emma Donoghue’s newest novel, “Room,” is a riveting story of a five-year-old boy named Jack.
In many ways, Jack is a typical five-year old. He likes reading books, watching TV, and playing games with his “Ma,” but there is one thing that makes Jack drastically different: he has lived his entire life in a single room with his mother and a demoralizing nightmare visitor, whom he knows as Old Nick.
Jack has never even been outside. To him, the room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives, learns, eats, sleeps, and plays.
Unlike Jack, to Ma, the room is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. It’s an unspeakable hell, where she shuts her son safely in the closet to sleep when Old Nick makes his nightly visits.
Through determination and fierce motherly love, Ma tries her best to craft a normal life for Jack, but when he turns five, he begins asking questions, leaving her to reveal the truth to him, that there is a world beyond the walls they live in.
Realizing the normal life she has tried to create for Jack is not enough for her and especially not for him, she creates a bold escape plan that will rely on her young son’s bravery and an enormous amount of luck.
The author’s choice to tell the story from five-year-old Jack’s point of view is what truly makes this book so remarkable. The content is heavy; most of the themes are dark, overwhelming, and sometimes disturbing, but it always has an innocent tone.
Jack’s innocent perspective makes you feel as if you’re re-discovering the world again, a world that is both beautiful and tainted. In words deeper than I can explain, this novel will give you an understanding of what is happening around us today-what a throw-away society we’re really living in.
Unlike many other novels that have similar topics, “Room” is no horror story or tearjerker; instead it’s a celebration of resilience, a story of survival in captivity, and the endless love between a parent and child.
I’ve never read anything quite like it. It will definitely have you feeling emotions you have never felt before. It’s definitely a must read.