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.

Let's Get Lost Review

Goodreads

TITLE: Let's Get Lost

AUTHOR: Adi Alsaid

PUBLISHER: Harlequin Teen

PUBLICATION DATE: 7/29/2014

PAGES: 352

SOURCE: Amazon Vine/Publisher

MY RATING:

BACK COVER SUMMARY: Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named Leila. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.

There's Hudson, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And Bree, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday--and a few stolen goods along the way.

Elliot believes in happy endings...until his own life goes off-script. And Sonia worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth--sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: This was a really nice contemporary read. It was easy to read., it was quick to read, and it was really entertaining. I loved that the story was written in different parts where we meet a new character, but we also learn more about the main character. The ending of this book was perfect. This was such a feel-good book that made me smile.

CHARACTERS: I loved all of the characters in this book. I love the way Leila interacted with everyone and how she handled all of the situations she was thrown into.

COVER: I like the cover a lot. It completely represents the feel of the book.

The Secret Hum of a Daisy Review

Goodreads

TITLE: The Secret Hum of a Daisy

AUTHOR: Tracy Holczer

PUBLISHER: G.P. Putnam's Sons

PUBLICATION DATE: 5/1/2014

PAGES: 320

SOURCE: ARC copy from Amazon Vine/Publisher

MY RATING: 

BACK COVER SUMMARY: Grace and her mother are their own family, traveling from place to place like gypsies. But Grace is tired and wants to finally have a home all to her own. She thinks she's found it with Mrs. Greene and her daughter, Lacey, so when her mother tells her it's time to move on again, Grace summons the courage to tell her mother how she really feels. She'll always regret that her last words to her mother were angry ones.

When Grace's mother dies suddenly, she's thrust into a world she doesn't understand and didn't expect--the town her mother grew up in and fled when she was just seventeen and pregnant with Grace. Now faced with making a home with a grandmother she's never met (and who, according to Grace's mother, never wanted her in the first place), Grace is desperate to be sent back to Mrs. Greene and her best friend, Lacey. A mysterious treasure hunt, just like the ones her mother used to send her on, may just be the key. It all begins with a crane. And Grace is sure it's her mother showing her the way home.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: For the first third of so of the book, I was having a hard time making myself pick up the book to read even though I was enjoying it, but that may have just been because there were so many other books that I wanted to read at the time. I got a lot more interested in the book and I wanted to see where the cranes were going to take Grace and how the relationship with her grandmother would progress.

CHARACTERS: I found myself really attached to the main character Grace. I felt almost like she was a younger family member of mine, and I wanted to make sure that she was okay and taken care of. 

COVER: The cover is nice. I like the blue to green gradient with the white graphics on top, it gives it a nice contrast. 

WWW Wednesdays #2

Answer 3 Questions:

*What are you reading?

*What did you recently finish reading?

*What do you think you'll read next?

1. What Are You Reading?

2. What Did You Recently Finish Reading?

3. What Do You Think You'll Read Next?

August Reading Update

In August I read a total of 9 books. That brings my total of books for the 2014 "Real" Book Challenge to 54 books read and my total books read for this year to 65.

"Real" Books:

Audio Books: