The Blurb:

“To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It’s where he was born, where he and his Ma eat and play and learn. At night, Ma puts him safely to sleep in the wardrobe, in case Old Nick comes.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it’s the prison where she’s been held for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for her son. But Jack’s curiosity is building alongside Ma’s desperation — and she knows Room cannot contain either indefinitely. …

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.”

(source: Goodreads)

What I thought:

I want to start by saying that I loved this book – loved it! When I see other reviews, prior to me reading a book, that state phrases like “unputdownable” and “kept me up all night” I tend to get very excited and have, in the past, been let down upon reading the book for myself. Not so with Room – believe the hype, people!

Room is narrated by five-year-old Jack who was born and still lives in an 11′ by 11′ shed with his Ma. Jack has never know any other life, and as far as he is concerned Room is the universe and only he and Ma exist (apart from Old Nick who is a bad man and visits Ma on an evening while Jack hides in Wardrobe and counts the creaks on Ma’s bed when he’s there). Room is Jack’s entire existence until his fifth birthday when Ma tells him that “outside” is not just on TV but actually exists. For a boy who has known nothing and nobody else this is a difficult concept to grasp and the narrative device deployed really works in showing us (rather than telling us) how Jack tries to make sense of this information. Jack’s little world has been about playing games with Ma (making an eggsnake that lives under the bed, jumping up towards the shed skylight and screaming at the top of their voices and running track round the tiny room), reading the same 5 books over and over and watching his best and only friend, Dora the Explorer, on TV. Now suddenly Ma is telling him that she once lived Outside and that she had a family and went to school before Old Nick brought her to Room and kept her there and she wants to go back!

I am usually pretty sceptical of books where the child is the narrator as I find that if not done sympathetically they make me cringe. Jack, however, was the perfect narrator: the whole world (or what he knows of it) is seen from his point of view so the book avoids the horror of Ma’s plight and instead sees the relationship between mother and son, born out of the most horrific of circumstances that the reader can understand, not through Jack telling us (as he doesn’t know) but through Jack showing us.

Room is both brilliantly written but also gripping: it took hold of me from the first page and never let me go until the end. This is a unique look at a relationship and a life told through the innocence and naivity of a young boy who’s whole world is 11 sqaure feet. The question is, does he need anything more?

I would highly, highly recommend this book. It’s one of my favourites of the year so far. The cover of the book has a quote by Audrey Niffenegger which I think sums the book up perfectly:

“Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it’s over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days”.

Have you read Room? What did you think? Are you going to read it?