Room by Emma Donoghue

A Metheringham Reading Group Book Review

From the author's web page:

ROOM (2010) is the story of a five-year-old called Jack, who lives in a single room with his Ma and has never been outside. When he turns five, he starts to ask questions, and his mother reveals to him that there is a world outside. To Jack, Room is the world....It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. There are endless wonders that let loose Jack's imagination-the snake under Bed that he constructs out of eggshells, the imaginary world projected through the TV, the cosiness of Wardrobe beneath Ma's clothes, where she tucks him in safely at night, in case Old Nick comes. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it's the prison where she's been held since she was nineteeen-for seven long years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in that eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But Jack's curiosity is building alongside her own desperation-and she knows that Room cannot contain either indefinitely....

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience-and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

This has been our most popular books of recent times with most people loving it and although the first pages are a bit slow and Jack's language odd, once you get into what is happening it is compulsive reading. It is the kind of book to read at one sitting - if you have the time.

Wendy said: I enjoyed this book and read it quickly. Maybe it should have been called The Womb. How sad and poignant, especially as we know of instances where this has actually happened in recent times.
It scored very highly, someone giving it two 10s which is almost unheard of, so it averaged 8½ for the enjoyment and 9 for the quality of the writing.
On the whole most people really enjoyed this book and we gave it an average score of 7

Pauline