Book Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

 

Room by Emma Donoghue

My Rating: 5/5 stars

Emma Donoghue’s Room tells the story of a 5-year-old named Jack and his beloved Ma. When she was 19, Ma was kidnapped, and since then her captor, whom Jack refers to as Old Nick, has kept her locked in a small shed in his backyard. Jack was born in this shed, and has spent every minute of his life since within its four walls. Ma, in an attempt to keep Jack from being upset over everything he’s missing out on, has instead chosen to tell Jack that Room is the entire universe, and what they see on television isn’t actually real.

First and foremost, I was absolutely astounded by this book. When I picked it up I wasn’t planning on actually reading it right away, as my stack of unread books is easily taller than myself. I went to scan the first page, however, and then next thing I knew it was 1:30 in the morning and I was 150 pages in. When I woke up the next day I immediately went back to reading and was finished by noon.

I think, for me, what makes Room so incredible and captivating is the fact that it has Jack as its narrator. A 5-year-old narrator could easily be irritating and tedious, and, admittedly, there were points in Room when that was the case. In fact, from the other reviews I’ve read, Jack still was overly grating to some people, and that turned them off to the book completely. I, however, really enjoyed it. There were times when Jack’s description of Room and their daily activities were fairly repetitive and boring, but if anything I felt that only worked to help me understand just a little bit of what Room must feel like for Ma. Most of the time, however, I felt Jack served as an incredibly unique perspective on some very dark themes.

Its hard to express most of my feelings about Room without getting into spoiler territory, but overall, I found Room to be sweet and sad and stressful and every other emotion in between. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so enamored with a book that I’ve needed to read it straight through, and that in itself is the reason I gave it 5 stars. Getting that hooked on a book is the best experience in the world, and I’m so grateful for Room letting me feel that way.

-Abby

February TBR

With all my reading for class in mind, I’ve only chosen four books I’d like to read, two of which are fairly short and one I’m half way through already. So hopefully this is an achievable goal, because I’m very excited for all of these reads!

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

I actually started this book last month but put it down half way through. It had nothing to do with my enjoyment of it, I actually really love what I’ve read so far, it’s just so long I needed a break. I may or may not get distracted easily. Now, however, I’m excited to finally get to the second half!

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

I’ve actually read this book as well, but am going to read it again for my Virginia Woolf class. I enjoyed it the first time around, but I know I’m going to get so much more out of it with a second reading.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I read Cisnero’s collection of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek, in class last year and was completely blown away. I’ve been meaning to read this ever since.

The Martian by Andy Weir

Admittedly, I’m not a big sci-fi fan, nor was I even really interested in seeing the movie. Weirdly enough, what made me want to read this book was proofreading an essay about it written by my classmate. She was telling me about it and just made it sound so interesting I decided to give it a try.

So that’s what I’ll be reading this month, what about you?

-Abby

January Round-Up

Thanks to the fact that half of this month was spent laying on the couch in Christmas break bliss, I got a lot of reading done. I read 5 books, which totaled about 1400 pages. That’s quite a lot for me. Now, with a stack of history texts books strewn across the majority of desk, my reading pace has slowed down quite a bit. Oh well, I guess it can’t always be Christmas. Anyways, here’s what I read in the past month!

The Hobbit by J.R. Tolkien

After years of saying I would read this book, I finally did! Unsurprisingly, I loved it. Despite my inability to keep any of the dwarves straight, I love the story and Bilbo quickly found a spot in my heart among some of my other favorite characters.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

This was a quick but very fun read. Some of the highlights for me were her descriptions of being a writer, her discussion of what having your first real friend is like, and of course her stories from The Office set.

Egghead: Or, You Can’t Survive on Ideas Alone by Bo Burnham

This is a quirky book of poems by my favorite comedian, Bo Burnham. Much like his stand-up , these poems range from slightly vulgar to silly to sweet. I’ve always admired Burnham’s ability to combine jokes with sentimentality, and this book definitely lived up to that expectation.

Room by Emma Donoghue

I was so entirely captivated by this book, it was absolutely incredible and very different than anything I’ve read before. I plan on writing a full review about it in the next few days, so for now all I’ll say is that I couldn’t put it down.

The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf

This semester I’m taking a Virginia Woolf class, which is pretty great. We obviously started with Virginia’s first novel, and it while it’s not my favorite of her works, it was incredibly interesting to see where one of my favorite author’s started.

-Abby