I picked up Emma Donoghue’s “Room” after reading very mixed reviews. The first hundred pages started slow and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to finish the book, then it picked up steam and didn’t slow down.
The story is told from the perspective of five year old Jack, who lives with his mother in a shed, where they are being held captive. The shed is the only world that Jack has ever known and his mother creates a life for them in their eleven-by-eleven foot space. Donoghue does a very convincing job of telling the story from the perspective of a child and she really creates his world. The story only had a few moments where I felt like something was said out of character, but I mostly bought right into it.
I think what I connected to the most was the theme of individuality. Once Jack and his mother reenter the world, they are attacked by people who do not understand them, but try to tell them how they must feel or how they should behave. The psychologists in the story are well intending, but clearly have no clue how to help them and are intrusive. They may have been through an ordeal, but they do not want, nor do they need the input from the psychologist, who cannot identify their needs. To me, this was a very central theme, as we live in a society that seems to want to slap labels on problems and fix them. This carries over into other segments of society for Jack and his mom…the women at the book club, the news reporters, ect.. everyone pities them and thinks that they must need help, but people do not actually bother to listen to what they want or respect their wishes. This aspect of the book made me feel sick to my stomach, but it rang true.
Although the book got off to a slow start, I felt like many aspects of it were brilliantly done.