Emma Donoghue: Room (2022, Pan Macmillan)
English language
Published April 30, 2022 by Pan Macmillan.
Room (London: Picador; Toronto: HarperCollins Canada; New York: Little Brown, 2010), Emma Donoghue's Man-Booker-shortlisted seventh novel, 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 beyond the walls. Told entirely in Jack’s voice, Room is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.
An international bestseller as soon as it was published in August 2010, Room has now sold well over two million copies. It won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for best Canadian novel), the Commonwealth Prize (Canada & Carribbean Region), the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards (Fiction Book and Author of the Year), the Forest of …
Room (London: Picador; Toronto: HarperCollins Canada; New York: Little Brown, 2010), Emma Donoghue's Man-Booker-shortlisted seventh novel, 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 beyond the walls. Told entirely in Jack’s voice, Room is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.
An international bestseller as soon as it was published in August 2010, Room has now sold well over two million copies. It won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for best Canadian novel), the Commonwealth Prize (Canada & Carribbean Region), the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards (Fiction Book and Author of the Year), the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award, the W. H. Smith Paperback of the Year Award and the University of Canberra Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, International Author of the Year (Galaxy National Book Awards), the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium English Book Award. The American Library Association gave it an Alex Award (for an adult book with special appeal to readers 12-18) and the Indie Choice Award for Adult Fiction. The Canadian Library Association named it as an Honour Book in their Canadian Young Adult Book Award. The four-voiced audiobook version won one of three Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards and an Earphones Award.
The New York Times named it as one of their six best fiction titles of 2010 and the Washington Post included it in their Editors’ Top Ten. Room was also winner of a Salon Book Award for Fiction, an NPR Best Book of 2010, a New Yorker Reviewers’ Favorite, Bloomberg’s 2010 Top Novel, The Week Magazine’s Top Book 2010, and featured on many ‘best of the year’ lists including those of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Christian Science Monitor. Room was Amazon.ca and Indigo’s Best Book (as well as a Heather’s Pick) of 2010, fiction winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards, Top Pick of the Channel 4 TV Book Club, and also chosen by the Richard & Judy Book Club. Room was chosen as one of twenty-five titles to be given away by tens of thousands on World Book Night UK 2012. ([source][1])
Disturbing, particularly because it is told through the eyes of a child and you only gradually get the real picture of what is going on, but uplifting too, because it tells of a mother's love and sacrifice and how remarkable the human spirit really is.
A very unique way of telling the story. I like it. This took me through several different emotions. From laughter and fondness to nearly holding my breath with suspense. I've never read anything like it. A good read.
At first I thought this was going to be a trial to read. How interesting can a five-year-old pov be sustained for a whole novel? But once the 'world was established', I was hooked. Room is at times gripping and terrifying. An intelligent imagining of a horrible series of events.
It took me a short while to get used to Jack's narrative style but once I was, I loved the story.
SpoilerI thought the best part of the book was while Jack and Ma were still in Room but I think that may be because Jack felt secure there. I think his insecurity and confusion made his telling the tale more difficult.
The way the author used Jack's voice to describe what the world appeared to be to him, an outsider, was fantastic. A great way to use the Sociological Eye, I thought.
I was reduced to tears several times - either for happy or sad or just by the powerful emotions the words pulled from me. I think part of it was that I'm a very emotional person but part of it was that I kept imagining my young son in Jack's place.
Room was a great, and at …
It took me a short while to get used to Jack's narrative style but once I was, I loved the story.
SpoilerI thought the best part of the book was while Jack and Ma were still in Room but I think that may be because Jack felt secure there. I think his insecurity and confusion made his telling the tale more difficult.
The way the author used Jack's voice to describe what the world appeared to be to him, an outsider, was fantastic. A great way to use the Sociological Eye, I thought.
I was reduced to tears several times - either for happy or sad or just by the powerful emotions the words pulled from me. I think part of it was that I'm a very emotional person but part of it was that I kept imagining my young son in Jack's place.
Room was a great, and at times difficult, read. I highly recommend it.
