Room Review (Audiobook)

Goodreads

TITLE: Room

AUTHOR: Emma Donoghue

READ BY: Michal Friedman, Ellen Archer, Robert Petkoff, Suzanne Toren

PUBLISHER: AudioGo

PUBLICATION DATE: 11/1/2010

LENGTH: 10 hours, 45 minutes

SOURCE: Library

MY RATING: 

SUMMARY (FROM GOODREADS): To 5-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for 7 years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough--not for her or for him.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic 5-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: This book was just wow. I've wanted to read it for a while, but I recently started getting into audiobooks and saw that this was available at my library so I decided to give it a try. The thing about this book that makes it so haunting is the narrator playing Jack. He really sounds like a 5-year-old boy, which really helped get me into the feeling of the story. Throughout the whole story, Jack is so innocent. He doesn't understand that his life is not normal. It's so heartbreaking to see how he interprets things.

The story is so horrific, but at the same time feels like something that could actually happen - in other words, the writing is really believable.

The audiobook comes with an extra PDF file that is basically a bunch of drawings done by "Jack" of the room that they are held captive in. It really puts it into perspective just how tiny the room is.

**SPOILERS**

I love that we get to see Jack's interaction with the world after his escape. It's interesting to see how he handles everything for the first time. These things that we deal with on a daily basis but that he's never encountered before.

**END SPOILERS**

CHARACTERS: I love Jack's character. He's so believable and so innocent. I feel like he is just a typical kid. He got on my nerves a few times just like any other kid would, but then you think about everything that he is dealing with and it breaks your heart.

COVER: I like the cover. It's nice and plain and I like how they used what looks like paints to write out the title as if Jack had painted it.