The bad place
Author : Emma Donoghue
Title : Room
Published : 18/06/2015
Pages : 432
Genre : Contemporary fiction
Publisher : Picador
It's Jack's birthday and he's excited about turning five. Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real. Until the day Ma admits that there's a world outside.
So I watched the film this was based on and was taken back by what a moving film it was. There are some many books out there the deal with this subject, It is sadly one I have seen come up in real life on the news. Women who are abducted and held in captivity your years sometimes even decades. So on my next trip to the bookstore, I procured myself a copy an intended to delve right in.
The Author takes a radical step in the telling of this book in allowing for the story to come to use from that o the five-year-old son of Ma. It threw me off a little at first, I suppose I am all to use to reading this sort of book from the point of view of the women or girl who has been taken. In many respect, it shields us as the reader from a lot of what Old Nick does to Ma in detail. And While these points go over Jack's head as the reader you are all too aware of that horror Ma endures. He doesn't understand why he can't have certain things. Ma for her part try's as best she can to give a proper life to Jack all the while trapped inside her eleven by eleven room. As you would come to expect that on top of everything else these two go through there are times when they cause friction between each other. How could there not be when they are never truly out of each other sight.
I would say that in allowing the story to come from Jack is a brave choice and one that for some will be not to there liking. For me it took a long while to get into it, I suppose when reading from the point of view of another adult it is easy to get there meaning if not necessarily the mindset. With Jack he only has to point from which to get his information about the word from, Those being Ma And a shaky old T.V. So we are left with a narrator who has a limited worldview and vocabulary. This, however, should take nothing away from the story he has to tell us. It is driven by a great deal of warmth for there is no doubting the love between Ma and Jack. There's is a story of bravery and survival. It is a book that will make you think a great deal and question what it would take for you to survive in such an extreme situation. It also makes you wonder what you would let be done to you in order to keep your child safe. Is there a point when self-preservation takes hold or is there, in fact, no line when it comes to our kids.
As much as I enjoyed my time with this book there where times when I felt the text lacking. At times it would have given me more as the reader to able to see some of these events from Ma's point of view. For the most part, we only get to see the front she puts up to try and keep Jack's life as normal as she can. This book will bring you on a roller coast of emotions, But for me, much like Jack himself, it felt a little stunted. There was just some slight spark missing. I failed to find a solid connection with these to which I feel is a shame. It is a book I'm glad I read but it is unlikely I will return to it.
So I watched the film this was based on and was taken back by what a moving film it was. There are some many books out there the deal with this subject, It is sadly one I have seen come up in real life on the news. Women who are abducted and held in captivity your years sometimes even decades. So on my next trip to the bookstore, I procured myself a copy an intended to delve right in.
The Author takes a radical step in the telling of this book in allowing for the story to come to use from that o the five-year-old son of Ma. It threw me off a little at first, I suppose I am all to use to reading this sort of book from the point of view of the women or girl who has been taken. In many respect, it shields us as the reader from a lot of what Old Nick does to Ma in detail. And While these points go over Jack's head as the reader you are all too aware of that horror Ma endures. He doesn't understand why he can't have certain things. Ma for her part try's as best she can to give a proper life to Jack all the while trapped inside her eleven by eleven room. As you would come to expect that on top of everything else these two go through there are times when they cause friction between each other. How could there not be when they are never truly out of each other sight.
I would say that in allowing the story to come from Jack is a brave choice and one that for some will be not to there liking. For me it took a long while to get into it, I suppose when reading from the point of view of another adult it is easy to get there meaning if not necessarily the mindset. With Jack he only has to point from which to get his information about the word from, Those being Ma And a shaky old T.V. So we are left with a narrator who has a limited worldview and vocabulary. This, however, should take nothing away from the story he has to tell us. It is driven by a great deal of warmth for there is no doubting the love between Ma and Jack. There's is a story of bravery and survival. It is a book that will make you think a great deal and question what it would take for you to survive in such an extreme situation. It also makes you wonder what you would let be done to you in order to keep your child safe. Is there a point when self-preservation takes hold or is there, in fact, no line when it comes to our kids.
As much as I enjoyed my time with this book there where times when I felt the text lacking. At times it would have given me more as the reader to able to see some of these events from Ma's point of view. For the most part, we only get to see the front she puts up to try and keep Jack's life as normal as she can. This book will bring you on a roller coast of emotions, But for me, much like Jack himself, it felt a little stunted. There was just some slight spark missing. I failed to find a solid connection with these to which I feel is a shame. It is a book I'm glad I read but it is unlikely I will return to it.
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