On the Back of the Book
Jack is five. He lives in a single, locked room with his Ma.
It's Jack's birthday, and he's excited about turning five. He 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, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day that Ma admits that there's a world outside...
Pre Read Thoughts
This is another book that I've picked up for a favourites challenge I'm taking part in for my Goodreads group, Basically Books! I'd been debating whether or not to buy this for a while when I saw this in my local British Heart Foundation charity shop for £2.50. I'm not a fan of the cover personally, it doesn't really tell me much about the story and I like when a book relates to its cover. The synopsis really caught my eye and it makes me want to dive into the book and see just what it's about.
Post Read Thoughts
The word for this book is addictive. I found the first part of the book hard to get into but once I got to the second part I had difficulty putting it down because it just sucked me in. Normally I don't like books without chapters, this has five parts, but it didn't bother me at all with this one. I loved the writing, I thought it was amazing. Saying that though, I sometimes felt that telling the story from Jack's POV sometimes held it back. I would've liked to know how his Ma was feeling during and after her ordeal. On the flip side, Jack's innocence gives the story a simpleness that melts your heart.
Explaining all of the characters when you've only seen them through the eyes of a five-year-old is difficult, so I'm not gonna bother. I'll tell you what I think of Jack. I love him, with his love for Dora the Explorer and his hatred of being touched by people who he doesn't know. I've read people who hated how he could know big words yet still describe things in a childlike manner. Well let me explain. He's five. He is a child. The descriptions use that to their advantage. I like that his imagination is used to enhance the story. His view of the world is so far away from what it should be and when he finds out the truth he handles it in a way that I find realistic. I actually think that this kid is a more rounded character than the majority of older characters I've come across this year.
Overall I definitely enjoyed this book. It's different to what I normally read and I find myself incredibly happy about that. The writing was genuinely very good and it worked so well with the premise of the book. Everything was done well, nothing was left to chance. It really made me think about what it would be like to be in that situation and how I'd deal with it. I'd recommend this to people who are fans of thought provoking novels with interesting styles and POVs.
My Rating
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