Room: A Novel
Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time. Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating -- a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child.
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Readers say *Room* is a tense, emotionally powerful novel uniquely narrated through the eyes of five-year-old Jack, immersing readers deeply in his wo...
4 stars may be a bit too generous since the language of the 5 year old boy got a little tiring for me as it is used during the entire book. The beginning of the book was a little dragging but the second half was fast paced and I couldn't put it down. Unfortunately this book was inspired by real life events. It puts on the table the real physical and emotional struggles of survivors of these kind of crimes, not only during their nightmare ordeals, but also after they have been rescued and they have to adapt to a "normal" life.
Puede que 4 estrellas sea un poco generoso, ya que leer todo el libro desde el language de un nin~o de 5 an~os me ha cansado un poco. El principio de libro me ha parecido un poco tedioso pero la segunda mitad ha sido mas entretenida y no podia dejar del leerlo. Desafortunadamente este libro esta inspirado en historia reales. Pone sobre la mesa el sufrimiento fisico y emocional que los supervivientes de estos crimenes deben enfrentar, no solo durante sus horribles situaciones, sino incluso despues de ser rescatados cuando tienen que adaptarse a una vida "normal".
Puede que 4 estrellas sea un poco generoso, ya que leer todo el libro desde el language de un nin~o de 5 an~os me ha cansado un poco. El principio de libro me ha parecido un poco tedioso pero la segunda mitad ha sido mas entretenida y no podia dejar del leerlo. Desafortunadamente este libro esta inspirado en historia reales. Pone sobre la mesa el sufrimiento fisico y emocional que los supervivientes de estos crimenes deben enfrentar, no solo durante sus horribles situaciones, sino incluso despues de ser rescatados cuando tienen que adaptarse a una vida "normal".
Reading Room is like stepping inside a five-year-old's mind and never wanting to leave.
Jack lives with his "Ma" in one room. To him, that's the whole world. He doesn't know there's anything outside. He doesn't know they're in prison. He only knows he's safe in his mother's arms.
Jack's voice broke my heart page after page. He tells horror without knowing it's horror, and that makes everything more true, more painful, more beautiful.
I read and clenched my teeth. I read and smiled. I read and cried.
Because in the end, Room isn't about captivity. It's about a mother's love. About how a mother can turn hell into a shelter. About how two people can be each other's whole world.
Perfect for: anyone looking for a story that squeezes your heart and warms it at the same time.
Jack lives with his "Ma" in one room. To him, that's the whole world. He doesn't know there's anything outside. He doesn't know they're in prison. He only knows he's safe in his mother's arms.
Jack's voice broke my heart page after page. He tells horror without knowing it's horror, and that makes everything more true, more painful, more beautiful.
I read and clenched my teeth. I read and smiled. I read and cried.
Because in the end, Room isn't about captivity. It's about a mother's love. About how a mother can turn hell into a shelter. About how two people can be each other's whole world.
Perfect for: anyone looking for a story that squeezes your heart and warms it at the same time.
Five-year-old Jack stands as our narrator throughout this story. Jack is a little boy who was born to a woman being held hostage by a man who kidnapped her 7 years earlier when she was 19 years old.
Jack has known nothing outside of Room (Jack thinks of everything as being alive, so the names of objects takes on more meaning for Jack, as they are the “names” of living things. They are his friends.) Room is the entire world, and as far as he knows, there is nothing in the world outside of Room, his mother, and his mother’s kidnapper (and his father) Old Nick.
I had a little difficulty adjusting to the child’s perspective of this book. It takes awhile to get the hang of having so many inanimate objects with names (Remote, Bed, Rug, Door, Wardrobe), and to get inside the mind of a child.
Jack is smart. At times he is too smart, leaving me feeling at times that I’m reading an unrealistic portrayal of a little boy. And typical of children, he can be quite self-centered and lack a certain consideration for his poor troubled mother.
His mother’s total focus is Jack. While Room is Jack’s world, Jack is his mother’s world. One can only imagine what life was like for his mother before Jack, trapped day-in and day-out in a single room all by herself, and raped and brutalized with no end in sight. Then one day Jack is born, and there is suddenly something to focus on and live for.
So in short, this book was pretty good. It kept me hanging on, wanting to know what would happen next, and how things would work out for them. However it wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped for. It just seemed a little...I don’t know...empty. There wasn’t much excitement or anything. It was more psychologically-based than I really expected. But good nonetheless, and a satisfying read in the end.
Jack has known nothing outside of Room (Jack thinks of everything as being alive, so the names of objects takes on more meaning for Jack, as they are the “names” of living things. They are his friends.) Room is the entire world, and as far as he knows, there is nothing in the world outside of Room, his mother, and his mother’s kidnapper (and his father) Old Nick.
I had a little difficulty adjusting to the child’s perspective of this book. It takes awhile to get the hang of having so many inanimate objects with names (Remote, Bed, Rug, Door, Wardrobe), and to get inside the mind of a child.
Jack is smart. At times he is too smart, leaving me feeling at times that I’m reading an unrealistic portrayal of a little boy. And typical of children, he can be quite self-centered and lack a certain consideration for his poor troubled mother.
His mother’s total focus is Jack. While Room is Jack’s world, Jack is his mother’s world. One can only imagine what life was like for his mother before Jack, trapped day-in and day-out in a single room all by herself, and raped and brutalized with no end in sight. Then one day Jack is born, and there is suddenly something to focus on and live for.
So in short, this book was pretty good. It kept me hanging on, wanting to know what would happen next, and how things would work out for them. However it wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped for. It just seemed a little...I don’t know...empty. There wasn’t much excitement or anything. It was more psychologically-based than I really expected. But good nonetheless, and a satisfying read in the end.
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