An Intense Read

Room by Emma Donoghue

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was not excited to read this book,it sounded creepy to me. And, I have to say, it is a little creepy, but, it also held my attention throughout. So why did I read it? Book club. Sometimes you are forced to read things that you don't really want to, and, it usually ends up all right. I can't say that I enjoyed the book, but I was totally immersed, and have gone back to read parts several times.

If you think you're going to read this book, you may not want to read past this sentence . . .

The title makes so much sense once you've read the story.

"Room" is Jake's world. It is all he knows. To him, room is real, and everything else is not real. Jake is not just smart, he's precocious. He's also incredibly naive. He lives in this small room, with a few stories, and a pattern to every day. Objects are named and become his friends. He loves his mom, he loves room, he loves his routines. He questions. His brain begins to be stretched. He learns there is a real world, this isn't all there is. This scares him. His mom asks him to perform a daring deed. He does, and their whole life changes.

For his mom, the change is mostly great, but for Jake, not so much. Everything he loves, everything that is familiar, is gone. He wants it back. This is hard for his mom, and for him--for so long they were just the two of them, and they mostly agreed on everything. Now the world is bigger, and has to expand to include other people.

I am glad for learning about the new life - I liked Steppa, and I felt Jake's awkwardness, and his mom's exhilaration with freedom, and frustration with Jake's slowness to embrace the freedom were expressed well. I thought the reaction of his mom's parents were real and believable.

The one thing I struggle with a bit is the fact that Jake is just five. I'm not sure a five year old would really have been able to perform such a daring deed.

On the copyright page, it says that the book is totally fictional, and I believe this to be true, except . . . today, I watched the Jaycee Dugard interview with Diane Sawyer. I have to wonder if the author's imagination was sparked by this true story of a young girl who was abducted, raped, imprisoned in a soundproof room, and gave birth to 2 children during her 18 year imprisonment. Having just finished "Room", and then watching the interview, there are some real similarities. Certainly both the interview and the book teach us that evil is real and in the world. After watching the Jaycee interview, I think we all need to be more diligent about caring for our neighbors, and being brave enough, and taking the risk to report, where we believe there may be wrong doing. I think sometimes we feel embarrassed, after all, what if we're wrong. Perhaps, we should be asking ourselves more often, what if we're right?

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