Genre: Fiction

Note: This review contains spoilers.

Room: A Novel is the story of five-year-old Jack and his mother and their life as prisoners in an 11×11 foot storage locker (the titular Room). Eventually, they devise a plan for escape and make it out into the world.

Jack narrates the story and, told from his point of view, the horror of the prison sinks in only slowly. Ma was kidnapped before Jack’s birth and he has known no other life. The room contains his life and his world, and he is satisfied with it. They do have a television but Jack thinks of as being ‘outer space’(outside his ‘world’) and not real.

At first, it is a little annoying that Jack speaks of the objects in Room without definite articles. But the reason for that oddity in language is that these objects are who occupy his life.

For TV, I go in Rocker but Ma sits on Bed with Kit, she’s putting the hem back up on her brown dress with pink bits. We watch the medical planet where doctors and nurses cut holes to pull the germs out. The persons are asleep not dead. The doctors don’t bite the threads like Ma, they use super sharp daggers and after, they sew the persons up like Frankenstein.

Jack is slightly precocious but we must remember that Ma has had exclusive one-on-one time with him for five years to teach him, and she has tried to provide instruction, routine and life skills.

The story of Jack & Ma’s life in the room is compelling, and their escape attempt is suspenseful. But I found the really thought-provoking issues were the ones that Jack faced once he & Ma were in the outside world.

Everything is new for Jack – the people, the noise, the sun, even having to wear shoes. As he faces these challenges, Ma struggles with her own re-entry problems.

After some months in his new world, Jack needs to see Room to tie up emotional loose ends. This is heart-wrenching.

We step through the door and it’s all wrong, Smaller than Room and emptier and it smells weird. Floor’s bare, that’s because no Rug, she’s in my wardrobe in our Independent Living, I forgot she couldn’t be here at the same time. Bed’s here but there’s no sheets or Duvet on her. Rocker’s here and Table and Sink and Bath and Cabinet but no plates or cutlery on top, and Dresser and TV and Bunny with the purple bow on him, and Shelf but nothing on her, and our chairs folded up but they’re all different. Nothing says anything to me. “I don’t think this is it.” I whisper to Ma. “Yeah, it is.” Our voices sound not like us. “Has it got shrunk?” “No, it was always like this.”

I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve not read Room because they feel it’s too ‘dark’. On the contrary, this is a book about the indomitability of the human spirit, the capacity to adapt, and the power of love. Recommended.

Links for my Canadian readers:

Room