Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Cannonball Read, bitches! I have a few reviews to catch up on, so here goes. Oh man, oh man, I hate writing reviews...but I'm not gonna start my 4th Cannonball Read by just documenting books, so here goes...



Room by Emma Donoghue

The narrator of Room is Jack, a 5-year old with a unique perception of the world, in that his "world" is one Room. Because his world is so limited, he often speaks of things as singular objects; he lives in Room, he sleeps in Cupboard, he eats with Spoon, he was born on Rug. Jack's Ma does her best to try to maintain as much normalcy as possible within the confines of this room.

If you haven't read a review of Room before, or you don't like being spoiled (which is probably the best way to go into reading this book), please skip ahead. The reason for this isolation is that Ma was kidnapped as a college student, and has been held captive in this room for 7 years by "Old Nick". Old Nick built Room out of a soundproof (and virtually escape-proof) shed in his back yard, and Ma is basically there for him to have sex with and leave. Ma does her best to make sure that Jack is happy and ignorant to the horror of their situation.

A couple of pages in, I was immediately worried that the tone of the book would end up affected by the author trying to cater to a 5-year olds worldview, but the fact that Jack's life is so phenomenally different from that of a normal 5-year old allows for his thought processes to come off as believable. While there were a few dips in the story that lost my interest for a bit, the story itself is compelling enough to keep reading, if only to see where they end up. I found myself annoyed that the story ended where it did. I wanted to know Jack as he grew up and started understanding the situation he was in. So basically, Good book. Read it.