book review of room

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

by Emma Donoghue ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2010

Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching and at times unexpectedly funny.

Talented, versatile Donoghue ( The Sealed Letter , 2008, etc.) relates a searing tale of survival and recovery, in the voice of a five-year-old boy.

Jack has never known a life beyond Room. His Ma gave birth to him on Rug; the stains are still there. At night, he has to stay in Wardrobe when Old Nick comes to visit. Still, he and Ma have a comfortable routine, with daily activities like Phys Ed and Laundry. Jack knows how to read and do math, but has no idea the images he sees on the television represent a real world. We gradually learn that Ma (we never know her name) was abducted and imprisoned in a backyard shed when she was 19; her captor brings them food and other necessities, but he’s capricious. An ugly incident after Jack attracts Old Nick’s unwelcome attention renews Ma’s determination to liberate herself and her son; the book’s first half climaxes with a nail-biting escape. Donoghue brilliantly shows mother and son grappling with very different issues as they adjust to freedom. “In Room I was safe and Outside is the scary,” Jack thinks, unnerved by new things like showers, grass and window shades. He clings to the familiar objects rescued from Room (their abuser has been found), while Ma flinches at these physical reminders of her captivity. Desperate to return to normalcy, she has to grapple with a son who has never known normalcy and isn’t sure he likes it. In the story’s most heartbreaking moments, it seems that Ma may be unable to live with the choices she made to protect Jack. But his narration reveals that she’s nurtured a smart, perceptive and willful boy—odd, for sure, but resilient, and surely Ma can find that resilience in herself. A haunting final scene doesn’t promise quick cures, but shows Jack and Ma putting the past behind them.

Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-316-09833-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: July 13, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

Share your opinion of this book

More by Emma Donoghue

BOOK REVIEW

by Emma Donoghue

More About This Book

BOOK TO SCREEN

SEEN & HEARD

THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring  passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the  Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

More by Kristin Hannah

by Kristin Hannah

THE PERFECT COUPLE

by Elin Hilderbrand ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2018

Sink into this book like a hot, scented bath...a delicious, relaxing pleasure. And a clever whodunit at the same time.

A wedding on Nantucket is canceled when the bride finds her maid of honor floating facedown in the Atlantic on the morning of the big day.

One of the supporting characters in Hilderbrand's ( Winter Solstice , 2017, etc.) 21st Nantucket novel is Greer Garrison, the mother of the groom and a well-known novelist. Unfortunately, in addition to all the other hell about to break loose in Greer's life, she's gone off her game. Early in the book, a disappointed reader wonders if "the esteemed mystery writer, who is always named in the same breath as Sue Grafton and Louise Penny, is coasting now, in her middle age." In fact, Greer's latest manuscript is about to be rejected and sent back for a complete rewrite, with a deadline of two weeks. But wanna know who's most definitely not coasting? Elin Hilderbrand. Readers can open her latest with complete confidence that it will deliver everything we expect: terrific clothes and food, smart humor, fun plot, Nantucket atmosphere, connections to the characters of preceding novels, and warmth in relationships evoked so beautifully it gets you right there. Example: a tiny moment between the chief of police and his wife. It's very late in the book, and he still hasn't figured out what the hell happened to poor Merritt Monaco, the Instagram influencer and publicist for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Even though it's dinner time, he has to leave the "cold blue cans of Cisco beer in his fridge” and get back to work. " ‘I hate murder investigations,’ [his wife] says, lifting her face for a kiss. ‘But I love you.’ " You will feel that just as powerfully as you believe that Celeste Otis, the bride-to-be, would rather be anywhere on Earth than on the beautiful isle of Nantucket, marrying the handsome, kind, and utterly smitten Benji Winbury. In fact, she had a fully packed bag with her at the crack of dawn when she found her best friend's body.

Pub Date: June 19, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-316-37526-9

Page Count: 464

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018

More by Elin Hilderbrand

by Elin Hilderbrand

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

• Non-Fiction
• Author’s Corner
• Reader’s Corner
• Writing Guide
• Book Marketing Services
• Write for us

Room by Emma Donoghue

A Heartfelt Tale of Resilience and Motherly Love

Title: Room

Author: Emma Donoghue

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Genre: Contemporary

First Publication: 2010

Language:  English

Major Characters: Jack Tenpenny, Ma, Old Nick

Setting Place: An unknown American state

Theme: Isolation, Growing Up, Parenting, Voyeurism and the Media

Narrator:  First Person

Book Summary: Room by Emma Donoghue

To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world….

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room by Emma Donoghue is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-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.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-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.

Book Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

Room by Emma Donoghue opens with Jack announcing that he’s 5 years old today. We learn that Jack lives in a small room with his mom, and that he’s never been outside of the room. They have a TV, but he doesn’t think anything on it is real – the only thing that’s real is what’s in the room. Sometimes an angry man comes and gets in the bed with his mom; during these times Jack hides in a wardrobe.

Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.

The story is told from Jack’s point of view, and details of why they are there are slowly revealed: His mother had been abducted off the street years earlier by the angry man, nicknamed Old Nick, and she has been held in the room since then. To survive, she frequently had to have sleep with Old Nick, and Jack was born 5 years ago. She created a daily routine to keep her son occupied and tried to make the situation into a game for him.

The action picks up fairly quickly when his mom plans an escape attempt. I won’t reveal what happens next, but the story abruptly shifts in tone after halfway through the book. I thought the first part of Room by Emma Donoghue had the strongest writing, but the second part was interesting in its consequences for both Jack and his mom.

Everybody’s damaged by something.

The secondary characters, seemed to barely reach the surface as though they were only in my peripheral vision. They are understanding, and as helpful as possible, but often couldn’t grasp the nightmare Jack and Ma have survived, while others can’t cope at all, which could have made for some very interesting characterizations if they had been fleshed out more.

This story is certainly haunting , and the characters did hang around in my head for some time. The story of Room by Emma Donoghue is moving and touching in the end, and I can’t say how much I appreciate the author’s portrait of the mother and child bond , which is unshakable, and is what stands out for me more than anything else.

The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it’s going to be the next minute.

A note on the audiobook: the audiobook (produced by Hachette) is read by a five year old. A FIVE YEAR OLD. It put everything into such perspective. There was no escaping the narrator, no escaping the truth that you had a boy who had grown from conception to five-years-old in one room. His voice was strong and innocent and perceptive. I really liked Jack, and actually being able to hear him was very powerful. It was also a full-cast audio (which means every character has a different voice) which made the listening experience really brilliant.

More on this topic

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Sign me up for the newsletter!

Readers also enjoyed

Tell me everything by elizabeth strout, lucy by the sea by elizabeth strout, oh william by elizabeth strout, anything is possible by elizabeth strout, my name is lucy barton by elizabeth strout, popular stories, one day, life will change by saranya umakanthan, most famous fictional detectives from literature, the complete list of the booker prize winner books, book marketing and promotion services.

We provide genuine and custom-tailored book marketing services and promotion strategies. Our services include book reviews and social media promotion across all possible platforms, which will help you in showcasing the books, sample chapters, author interviews, posters, banners, and other promotional materials. In addition to book reviews and author interviews, we also provide social media campaigning in the form of contests, events, quizzes, and giveaways, as well as sharing graphics and book covers. Our book marketing services are very efficient, and we provide them at the most competitive price.

The Book Marketing and Promotion Plan that we provide covers a variety of different services. You have the option of either choosing the whole plan or customizing it by selecting and combining one or more of the services that we provide. The following is a list of the services that we provide for the marketing and promotion of books.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews have direct impact on readers while they are choosing their next book to read. When they are purchasing book, most readers prefer the books with good reviews. We’ll review your book and post reviews on Amazon, Flipkart, Goodreads and on our Blogs and social-media channels.

Author Interviews

We’ll interview the author and post those questions and answers on blogs and social medias so that readers get to know about author and his book. This will make author famous along with his book among the reading community.

Social Media Promotion

We have more than 170K followers on our social media channels who are interested in books and reading. We’ll create and publish different posts about book and author on our social media platforms.

Social Media Set up

Social Media is a significant tool to reaching out your readers and make them aware of your work. We’ll help you to setup and manage various social media profiles and fan pages for your book.

We’ll provide you our social media marketing guide, using which you may take advantage of these social media platforms to create and engage your fan base.

Website Creation

One of the most effective and long-term strategies to increase your book sales is to create your own website. Author website is must have tool for authors today and it doesn’t just help you to promote book but also helps you to engage with your potential readers. Our full featured author website, with blog, social media integration and other cool features, is the best marketing tool you can have. You can list each of your titles and link them to buy from various online stores.

Google / Facebook / Youtube Adverts

We can help you in creating ad on Google, Facebook and Youtube to reach your target audience using specific keywords and categories relevant to your book.

With our help you can narrow down your ads to the exact target audience for your book.

For more details mail us at [email protected]

The Bookish Elf is your single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of literary life. The Bookish Elf is a site you can rely on for book reviews, author interviews, book recommendations, and all things books. Contact us: [email protected]

Quick Links

• Privacy Policy

Recent Posts

• Member Login
• Library Patron Login
• Get a Free Issue of our Ezine! Claim

BookBrowse Reviews Room by Emma Donoghue

Summary  |  Excerpt  |  Reading Guide  |  Reviews  |  Beyond the book  |  Read-Alikes  |  Genres & Themes  |  Author Bio

• BookBrowse Review:
• Critics' Consensus:
• Readers' Rating:
• First Published:
• Sep 13, 2010, 336 pages
• May 2011, 352 pages

• Literary Fiction
• Contemporary
• Parenting & Families
• Adult Books From Child's Perspective
• Adult-YA Crossover Fiction
• Strong Women
• Top Books of 2010
• Publication Information
• Write a Review
• Buy This Book

About This Book

• Reading Guide

Book Awards

• Media Reviews
• Reader Reviews

A novel narrated by a 5-year-old boy held captive with his mother in a single room

When I finished this brilliant novel, besides being as locked into its story and world as Jack and Ma were in Room, I had no idea how I would review it. I was convinced there was nothing I could say about it without the entire review being one big spoiler. For me, what made Room so great was that I never knew from page to page what would happen next. Finding out what happens next made it one of the best thrillers I have ever read. I want every reader to experience that. Therefore, other reviews will let you find out more than I am going to tell you. Even the summary on the jacket tells more than I would. I will tell you that five-year-old Jack is one of the most unique fictional characters I have ever met. If Harold of purple crayon fame or Max and his wild things could tell you about their lives in their own words, they might sound a bit like Jack. Emma Donoghue has two small children and has clearly read plenty of books to them while not forgetting what it is like to be a child. Because Jack has only known one other human being for his first five years, his perception of Ma is another wonder of Room . When he is angry at something Ma does, even during the occasional day when she is "gone" and can't get out of bed, his intimate understanding of her is equal to the care she takes with him and is deeply moving. Ma has used imagination and routine to create a safe world for Jack. He always knows what time it is, how much TV he can watch, when the activities of the day will occur. Ma does her best to answer his many questions, teaches him to read and count through games that they play, and keeps him safe from Old Nick. Room is their world and everything else is TV or Outer Space. The author conveys it all through the eyes of Jack. Later in the story as things change, the author maintains Jack's credibility almost perfectly. So convincing are the initial setups of the story that I willingly suspended my disbelief through to the last page and allowed Jack his viewpoint, his language and most of all, his feelings. The themes in Room are weighty and disturbing. Domestic bullying, abduction, imprisonment, varieties of dangerous environments are the stuff of modern life. By filtering those themes through the eyes and mind of a child, Donoghue lays on the patina of a fairy tale. She also illustrates the power of mothering and the heroism of ordinary people. These are just some of the ways we triumph over a world full of terrors. Room will make an excellent book club read with lots to discuss. It may also appeal to teen readers as it contains no inappropriate content and might help young adults in dealing with life.

• "Beyond the Book" articles
• Free books to read and review (US only)
• Find books by time period, setting & theme
• Read-alike suggestions by book and author
• Book club discussions
• and much more!
• Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
• More about membership!

Beyond the Book:    Emma Donoghue

Read-alikes.

• Genres & Themes

If you liked Room, try these:

A Million Things

by Emily Spurr

Published 2021

About This book

Winner of the 2021 BookBrowse Debut Award A soaring, heartfelt debut following fifty-five days in the life of ten-year-old Rae, who must look after herself and her dog when her mother disappears.

by Rhiannon Navin

Published 2019

For fans of Room and the novels of Jodi Picoult, a dazzling, tenderhearted debut about healing, family, and the exquisite wisdom of children, narrated by a six-year-old boy who reminds us that sometimes the littlest bodies hold the biggest hearts, and the quietest voices speak the loudest.

BookBrowse Book Club

Members Recommend

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

Discover the bestselling Japanese novel celebrating the healing power of cats.

Book Club Giveaway!

Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian

Both epic and intimate, this debut announces a brilliant new talent for readers of Imbolo Mbue and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Solve this clue:

and be entered to win..

Your guide to exceptional           books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info and giveaways by email.

Free Weekly Newsletters

Discover what's happening in the world of books: reviews, previews, interviews, giveaways, and more plus when you subscribe, we'll send you a free issue of our member's only ezine..

Spam Free : Your email is never shared with anyone; opt out any time.

• Biggest New Books
• Non-Fiction
• All Categories
• First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
• How It Works

Embed our reviews widget for this book

Get the Book Marks Bulletin

Email address:

• Categories Fiction Fantasy Graphic Novels Historical Horror Literary Literature in Translation Mystery, Crime, & Thriller Poetry Romance Speculative Story Collections Non-Fiction Art Biography Criticism Culture Essays Film & TV Graphic Nonfiction Health History Investigative Journalism Memoir Music Nature Politics Religion Science Social Sciences Sports Technology Travel True Crime

September 19, 2024

• Thea Lim on the collapse of self-worth in the digital age
• The history of the ongoing political assault against Haitian Americans
• Gregg LaGambina interviews PJ Harvey

Advertisement

Supported by

Revisiting Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’

• Share full article

Megan O’Grady reviews Emma Donoghue’s latest novel , “Akin,” in this week’s issue. In 2010, Aimee Bender wrote for the Book Review about “Room,” Donoghue’s novel about a 5-year-old held captive in a small room with his mother.

Emma Donoghue’s remarkable new novel, “Room,” is built on two intense constraints: the limited point of view of the narrator, a 5-year-old boy named Jack; and the confines of Jack’s physical world, an 11-by-11-foot room where he lives with his mother.

Donoghue navigates beautifully around these limitations. Jack’s voice is one of the pure triumphs of the novel: in him, she has invented a child narrator who is one of the most engaging in years. The reader learns as Jack learns, and often we learn more than he can yet grasp, but as with most books narrated by children, the gap between his understanding and ours is a territory of emotional power.

Early on, the story reveals that Room is actually a prison, with a villain holding the key, and that Ma (as Jack calls his mother) is being kept against her will. Fierce claustrophobia sets in — what had seemed an odd mother-child monastery is now Rapunzel’s tower or Anne Frank’s annex or a story from the news about a stolen child living in a hidden compound. Jack, interestingly, does not feel trapped; that the two live in Room against his mother’s will is not something the son knows right away, and this contrast creates the major fissures and complexities in the book: Room is both a jail and a haven.

Read the rest of the review.

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram , s ign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar . And listen to us on the Book Review podcast .

• Short Story Collections
• For Children
• Literary History

Room (London: Picador; Toronto: HarperCollins Canada; New York: Little Brown, 2010), my Man-Booker-shortlisted seventh novel, is the story of a five-year-old called Jack, who lives in a single room with his Ma and has never been outside. When he turns five, he starts to ask questions, and his mother reveals to him that there is a world beyond the walls. Told entirely in Jack’s voice, Room is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.

An international bestseller as soon as it was published in August 2010, Room has sold close to three million copies.  It won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for best Canadian novel), the Commonwealth Prize (Canada & Carribbean Region), the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards (Fiction Book and Author of the Year), the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award, the W. H. Smith Paperback of the Year Award and the University of Canberra Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, International Author of the Year (Galaxy National Book Awards), the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium English Book Award. The American Library Association gave it an Alex Award (for an adult book with special appeal to readers 12-18) and the Indie Choice Award for Adult Fiction. The Canadian Library Association named it as an Honour Book in their Canadian Young Adult Book Award. The four-voiced audiobook version won one of three Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards and an Earphones Award.

The New York Times named it as one of their six best fiction titles of 2010 and the Washington Post included it in their Editors’ Top Ten.  Room was also winner of a Salon Book Award for Fiction, an NPR Best Book of 2010, a New Yorker Reviewers’ Favorite, Bloomberg’s 2010 Top Novel, The Week Magazine’s Top Book 2010, and featured on many ‘best of the year’ lists including those of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Christian Science Monitor .  Room was Amazon.ca and Indigo’s Best Book (as well as a Heather’s Pick) of 2010, fiction winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards, Top Pick of the Channel 4 TV Book Club, and also chosen by the Richard & Judy Book Club.  Room was chosen as one of twenty-five titles to be given away by tens of thousands on World Book Night UK 2012.

A personal note: Room was inspired by… having kids; the locked room is a metaphor for the claustrophobic, tender bond of parenthood. I borrowed observations, jokes, kid grammar and whole dialogues from our son Finn, who was five while I was writing it. Room was also inspired by... ancient folk motifs of walled-up virgins who give birth (e.g. Rapunzel), often to heroes (e.g. Danaë and Perseus).  Room was also inspired by… the Fritzl family’s escape from their dungeon in Austria – though I doubt I’ll ever use contemporary headlines as a launching point again, since I didn’t like being even occasionally accused of ‘exploitation’ or tagged ‘Fritzl writer’.  But on the whole, publishing my seventh novel – and having the great good fortune to win new readers all over the world – has been a delight. 

To buy Room

In the US, in paperback: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/emma-donoghue/room/9780316268356/

or ebook: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/emma-donoghue/room/9780316129114/

or multi-voiced audiobook: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/emma-donoghue/room/9781611138436/

In the UK/Ireland/Australia, paperback: http://www.panmacmillan.com/book/emmadonoghue/roompicador40thanniversaryedition?format=978144720281301

or audio : https://thereadinghouse.co.uk/products/room-by-emmadonoghue

In Canada, paperback: http://harpercollins.ca/books/Room-Emma-Donoghue/?isbn=9781443413695

or ebook: http://harpercollins.ca/books/Room-Emma-Donoghue/?isbn=9781443404365

  Wherever you live, PLEASE support your local indie bookstore by buying from them either directly or through an indie-friendly hub such as bookshop.org or hive.co.uk.

TRANSLATIONS

Room has been translated into more than forty languages.

‘Astounding, terrifying… It’s a testament to Donoghue’s imagination that she is able to fashion radiance from such horror.’ – The New Yorker

‘One of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year. … For such a peculiar, stripped-down tale, it's fantastically evocative… Not too cute, not too weirdly precocious, not a fey mouthpiece for the author's profundities, Jack expresses a poignant mixture of wisdom, love and naivete that will make you ache to save him -- whatever that would mean.’ – Washington Post Book World

 ‘A feat of both infectious claustrophobia and controlled perspective.’ – Time

‘Heart-stopping… Donoghue’s utterly gripping plot may sound as if it has been ripped from headlines, but there's real art here… "Room" is a big wow.’ – San Francisco Chronicle

'Donoghue has created one of the pure triumphs of recent fiction: an ebullient child narrator, held captive with his mother in an 11-by-11-foot room, through whom we encounter the blurry, often complicated space between closeness and autonomy. In a narrative at once delicate and vigorous — rich in psychological, sociological and political meaning — Donoghue reveals how joy and terror often dwell side by side.' – note on Room ’s choice as one of five best fiction titles of 2010 in the New York Times

‘Donoghue navigates beautifully around these limitations.  Jack’s voice is one of the pure triumphs of the novel… Thrilling and at moments palm-sweatingly harrowing… This is a truly memorable novel, one that can be read through myriad lenses – psychological, sociological, political.  It presents an utterly unique way to talk about love, all the while giving us a fresh, expansive eye on the world in which we live.’ – New York Times Book Review (cover review)

‘Jack is precocious but entirely believable, his passage out of cloistered innocence more universal than you might think (it’s no accident, surely, that the book’s title rhymes with “womb”).’ – People (a People Pick)

‘Narrated by a 5-year-old boy so real you could swear he was sitting right beside you… Room has all kinds of emotional wallop. But what makes the emotion possible is that this book is built like a finely crafted instrument that perfectly merges art and function… Room is so beautifully contrived that it never once seems contrived. But be warned: once you enter, you’ll be Donoghue’s willing prisoner right down to the last page.’ - Newsweek

"Room" is indeed suspenseful, but the fact that it could well keep you up late, eager to find out what happens next, isn't the extraordinary thing about this novel… Without denying Jack's vulnerability, Donoghue allows an almost terrifying resilience to seep into his narrative — terrifying because the momentum that drives a child to adulthood, that sends him rocketing away from the past, is so relentless and inexorable. There's a wholeness to the conclusion of "Room" that doesn't resort to false tidiness and bogus uplift.’ – Salon.com

‘Sophisticated in outlook and execution… Ms. Donoghue makes the gutsy and difficult choice to keep the book anchored somewhere inside Jack’s head… Utterly plausible, vividly described.’ – New York Times

‘A novel so disturbing that we defy you to stop thinking about it, days later … beautifully served by Jack's wise but innocent voice.’ – O Magazine

‘Powerful, tension-filled and takes a big risk… Highly recommended.’ – Now

‘Claustrophobic, controversial, brilliant… inventive, tense, and stringently intelligent.’ - Macleans

‘Remarkable… heartrending… Both gripping and poignant, it’s a tribute to human resourcefulness and resilience and extremity, and a stirring portrait of a mother’s devotion.’ – Toronto Star

‘Riveting and original… a page-turner… With a good deal of cleverness and skill, Donoghue manages to build a level of suspense which makes the book impossible to set aside.’ – London Free Press

‘Inventive and disturbing… compellingly subversive.’ – Winnipeg Free Press

‘Somehow, via the narrative voice of Jack and his stoic and heroic making-sense in words of his small world, it breaks free of every preset category. This is a novel, and a child, that will not be confined…. Pungent and percussive, Jack’s new-minted language grabs hold of his constricted life with startling force and zest … The book often bounces along through its profound darkness with a near-comic exuberance.’ – Independent

‘Charming, funny, artfully constructed and at times almost unbearably moving, Donoghue mines material that on the face of it appears intractably bleak and surfaces with a powerful, compulsively readable work of fiction that defies easy categorization. … Part childhood adventure story, part adult thriller, Room is above all the most vivid, radiant and beautiful expression of maternal love I have ever read. Emma Donoghue has stared into the abyss, honoured her sources and returned with the literary equivalent of a great Madonna and Child. This book will break your heart." – Irish Times

‘As a life-affirming fable of parent-child love, and an antidote to the prurience of so much crime fiction, it's a triumph, and deserves to be a hit.’ – Daily Telegraph

‘It takes a consummate writer to make us marvel at the mundane. Beckett's Waiting for Godot did it, of course. So did Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich , set in a 1950s Siberian labour camp. Emma Donoghue does it so spectacularly that we are taken by surprise when, in the middle of the novel, resourceful Ma's escape plans swing into action… Donoghue’s great strength – apart from her storytelling gift – is her emotional intelligence.’ – Irish Independent

‘Both hard to put down and profoundly affecting... Donoghue has crafted a narrative that moves as breathlessly as a serial-killer thriller while convincingly portraying, with the precision of a science-fiction novel, how a boy might believe that a room is his whole world.’ – Sunday Times

‘A novel like no other … The grotesque is consistently balanced with the uplifting and there is a moment, halfway through the novel, where you feel you would fight anyone who tried to wrestle it from your grasp with the same ferocity that Ma fights for Jack, such is the author's power to make out of the most vile circumstances something absorbing, truthful and beautiful.’ – Observer

‘A celebration of the freedoms we take for granted. A gripping, moving read.’ – Time Out

‘The story is told with unsurpassed panache. … Room will certainly be much garlanded, and it will deserve every prize it gets. Fantastic.’ – Readers Digest

‘I’ve never read a more heart-burstingly, gut wrenchingly compassionate novel . . . As for sweet, bright, funny Jack, I wanted to scoop him up out of the novel and never let him go. In him, Donoghue has created 21st-century fiction’s most uniquely loveable voice.’ – Daily Mail

‘Not many writers, though, would have had the courage, or the ability, to visit this particular place and produce such a startlingly original and moving piece of work . . . it is a testament to Donoghue’s skill how quickly that voice becomes acceptable, then endearing and finally utterly compelling, as compelling as the murdered young girl who narrated Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones . … It is a tremendous achievement.’ - Scotsman

'Totally unique and intriguing. It kept us utterly hooked.' - Cosmopolitan

‘Gripping, harrowing, oddly life-affirming and imaginative… extraordinary power’ – Mirror (Book of the Week)

‘A brilliant book, moving, true, funny, desolate and unmissable.’ – Herald (Ireland)

An article I wrote ten years after Room : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/08/emma-donoghue-on-writing-room-i-toned-down-some-of-the-horror-of-the-fritzl-case

The excellent ten-page Back Bay Readers’ Picks Reading Group Guide to Room : Click here .

For an interactive floor plan and lots of other information about Room , check out www.roomthebook.com .

‘A Library for Ma and Jack,’ selection © Emma Donoghue Ltd, 2010.It was so hard choosing just ten books for Jack and Ma to have in Room that I’ve put together a sort of anthology of texts that might help them on the Outside. Click here to read more .

Here is Little, Brown’s atmospheric trailer for the novel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfpTad-lt-U

And HarperCollins Canada’s one, which was a finalist in the year’s book trailer awards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpnelG0f9A  

An in-depth 40-minute audio discussion of Room by the Slate Book Club, http://www.slate.com/id/2286457/

Reading from Room at International Festival of Authors in Toronto, October 2010: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/in-other-words/podcast-emma-donoghue-reads-at-ifoa-2010/article1784074/

Interviewed by Melissa Block on NPR’s All Things Considered , 27 September 2010: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130143360

Interviewed by John Hockenberry on The Takeaway, 29 September 2010: http://www.thetakeaway.org/2010/sep/29/emma-donoghue-her-new-novel-room/

A fascinating case-study of the marketing of Room , broadcast on NPR, 10 September 2010: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129757766

In terviewed by Harriett Gilbert on BBC World Service’s The Strand, 12 August 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p008zrbp/The_Strand_The_Strand_Thursday_12th_August_2010/

Interviewed by Jenny Murray on Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4, 12 August 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t89g6/Womans_Hour_11_08_2010/

'Bringing Up Baby', Emma Donoghue in discussion with Sir Michael Rutter at a Royal Society / Royal Society of Literature event, 7 July 2013, http://royalsociety.tv/rsPlayer.aspx?presentationid=1131

Interview about development of the film of Room with Miriam O'Callaghan on The John Murray Show, September 2013

Interview with xtra tv about a queer interpretation of room , https://www.youtube.com/watchv=myqxzsgo5va, bibliography.

Nadeem Ahmad Rather and Sukanya Mondal, 'Unlocking the Voices of Children: The Evolution of Child Narrators in Anglophone Literature,' in Childhood in the Past (2024 ) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17585716.2024.2351626

Viktoria Susanne Herold, '(Dis)attending to the Other: Contemporary Fictions of Empathy,' Doctoral thesis UCL 2023 https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10177466/

Ahlam Ahmed Mohamed Othman , ' Truth in Fiction is Truth Infection: A Study of Emma Donoghue’s Room , ' Studi Irlandesi 13 (July 2023)

Jockim Devaraj, 'The Power of Transition and Child's Play in Emma Donoghue's novel Room ' (February 2023) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368788504_The_Power_Of_Transition_And_Child's_Play_In_Emma_Donoghue's_Novel_Room

James Little, 'Confinement and the Transnational in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Open Library of Humanities 8 (2), 2022, Special Collection: Local and Universal in Irish Literature and Culture, https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/8774/ A brilliant exploration of the novel in the context of my whole career.

Robinson Murphy, ‘Castration Desire: Less Is More in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ College Literature 49:1 (Winter 2022), 53-79, and adapted into Chapter Six of Murphy's Castration Desire: Less Is More in Global Anglophone Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2023). An outstandingly perceptive theoretical analysis of the novel which considers Jack as a gender nonconforming, enviromentalist figure.

Virginie Buhl, ' From research-creation in translation studies to creative writing: report of a doctoral journey,' REA (Etudes sur le Monde Anglophone) , 20.1 (2022), https://journals.openedition.org/erea/15472?lang=en

María Elena Jaime de Pablos, ‘Becoming Resilient Subjects: Vulnerability and Resistance in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,’ in M.I. Romero-Ruiz and P Cuder-Domínguez, eds. Cultural Representations of Gender Vulnerability and Resistance (Palgrave, 2022), pp.33-52. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95508-3_3

Carolyn Gebauer, 'Narrative of Emancipation: Character-Centered Illusion, Cognitive Dissonance, and Narrative Unreliability in Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010),' in her Making Time: World Construction in the Present-Tense Novel (DeGruyter, 2021), 257-175.

Virginie Buhl, ‘Translating Vulnerable Voices into French: The Child Narrators in Emma Donoghue’s Room and Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English ,' Translation Studies XIV (2021), 29-45, https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1073871

S. Sreelekshmi, ' Beyond the Walls: A Meditation on Confinement and Freedom in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,' Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research , 8:1 (Jan 2021), https://www.jetir.org/view?paper=JETIR2101217

Christopher John Stephens, 'Confinement and Escape: Emma Donoghue and E. L. Doctorow in Our Time of Self-Isolation,' (2020) https://www.popmatters.com/donoghue-room-doctorow-homerlangley-2645632574.html

Eke Pernik, 'The influence of traumatic experience on a child’s identity development in Emma Donoghue’s Room' (2020),  https://dspace.ut.ee/handle/10062/69926

Andrea O'Reilly, 'Redemptive Mothering: Reclamation, Absolution and Deliverance in Emma Donoghue's Room and The Wonder ,' in Writing Mothers: Narrative Acts of Care, Redemption, and Transformation , ed. BettyAnn Martin and Michelann Parr (Bradford, ON: Demeter, 2020), pp.141-66

Putti Aisyah and Hujuala Rika Ayu , 'Negotiating Motherhood in Constraining Space in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Paradigm 2 (2): 83, November 2019, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337692177_NEGOTIATING_MOTHERHOOD_IN_CONSTRAINING_SPACE_IN_EMMA_DONOGHUE'S_ROOM

Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, ' “Stories Are a Different Kind of True”: Narrative and the Space of Recovery in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,' Chapter Four of Trauma and Recovery in the Twenty-First-Century Irish Novel (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018), pp.92-109.

Ankita Das and Rajni Singh, 'Contesting Captive Spaces: A Reading of Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Journal of English Language and Literature 9:2 (April 2018), chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/83fe/179029db37d9a3dc1e7789689cadb4af2393.pdf

Ann Marie A. Short, “In This Whole Story, That’s the Shocking Detail?” Extended Breastfeeding in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,’ in Breastfeeding and Culture: Discourses and Representation , ed. Ann Marie A. Short, Abigail L. Palko and Dionne Irving (Demeter Press, 2018), 149-164.

Noémi Albert, 'Jack be nimble, Jack be quick: A curious existence in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' 2018, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/336402

Sara Martín-Ruiz (University of the Balearic Isles), ‘Emma Donoghue’s Room : Perspectives from Direct Provision’, paper delivered at conference on Irish Shame, Buffalo NY, 2018

Libe García Zarranz, ‘Corporeal Citizenship: Deviant Bodies in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ in her  TransCanadian Feminist Fictions: New Crossborder Ethics (McGill-Queens, 2017). Excellent reading of Jack's oddities.

Maite Escudero-Alias, 'The Willful Child': Resignifying Vulnerability through Affective Attachments in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ in Victimhood and Vulnerability in 21st Century Fiction , 2017, 35-52.

Andrea O’Reilly, ‘ “All Those Years, I Kept Him Safe”: Maternal Practice as Redemption and Resistance in Emma Donoghue’s Room’ , in Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research & Community Involvement , 8:1-2 (Spring/Fall 2017), 89-98.

Margaret O’Neill, ‘Transformative Tales for Recessionary Times: Emma Donoghue’s Room and Marian Keyes’ The Brightest Star in the Sky ,’ in Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory , 28:1 (2017), 55-74.

Samuel Caleb Wee (Nanyang Technological University), '“…Need to Listen to Jack”: The Alterity of Childhood and Literature in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,' paper delivered at IASIL (Singapore, 2017).

Marisol Morales Ladrón,  ‘Psychological Resilience in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,’ in National Identities and Imperfections in Contemporary Irish Literature: Unbecoming Irishness,  ed. Luz Mar González-Árias (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp.83-98.

Margaret O'Neill, 'Transformative tales for recessionary times: Emma Donoghue's Room and Marian Keyes' The Brightest Star in the sky ,' in eds Claire Bracken and Tara Harney-Mahajan, Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland and Contemporary Women’s Writing : Feminist interventions and imaginings (special issue LIT 2017, Routledge 2021)

Kathleen Walsh, 'Mother and Father: The Dual Role of the Single Parent in Room ,' https://medium.com/ @kathleenjuliamary/mother-and-father-the-dual-role-of-the-single-parent-in-room-e36c62a26dc5

Lucia Lorenzi ‘ “Am I Not OK?": Negotiating and Re-defining Traumatic Experience in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ Canadian Literature , No.228-29 (Spring-Summer 2016) https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA491086628&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00084360&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E8a24a0e1

Moynagh Sullivan (Maynooth University), 'Mother and Child: Subjective Time, Space, History in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' keynote delivered at ACIS (University of Miami, 2015).

Dominique Hetu, ‘Of Wonder and Encounter: Textures of Human and Nonhuman Relationality,’ in  Mosaic , 48:3 (Sept 2015). Compares  Room  with  Sous Beton  by Karoline Georges.

Claudia Weber, 'Anxieties Reloaded and Fears Overcome: Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010)', in her Televisionization: Enactments of TV Experiences in Novels from 1970 to 2010 (2014), pp.161-82

Renata Brosch (University of Stuttgart), 'Coun terfocalization and Empathy: The Example of Emma Donoghue’s  Room,' paper delivered at 2nd International Network Conference (Durham University, 2014)

Marco Caracciolo, 'Two child narrators: defamiliarization, empathy and reader-response in Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident and Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Semiotica , 202 (2014)

Sandra Dinter, 'Plato's Cave Revisited: Epistemology, Perception and Romantic Childhood in Emma Donoghue's Room (2010)', in C21 Literature: Journal of Twenty-First Century Writings , 2.1 (Oct 2013)

Moynagh Sullivan, 'Lactation, Lactation, Lactation: Places, Bodies and In Between in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' paper delivered at betweenbodies/bodiesbetween conference, National University of Ireland, Maynooth (2013)

Khem Raj Sharma, 'Narrative Complexity in Emma Donoghue’s  Room ,' paper delivered at MELUSMELOW International Conference on Patterns of Story Telling, Panjab University, Chandigarh (2013)

Jacklyn Guay, “Blame the Mother: Jungian Analysis of the Media’s Role in Affecting Further Trauma to the Individual, as exemplified in Emma Donoghue’s  Room and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin ”, paper delivered at Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference (Washington DC 2013)

  Renate Brosch, Stuttgart University, ‘Narrativity and Visualisation: Narrative Beginnings as Attention’, paper delivered at International Conference on Narrative (York, 2013)

Maite Escudero-Alias, (Zaragoza, Spain), ‘Beyond Trauma Narrative: Affects and Attachment in Emma Donoghue’s Room ’, paper delivered at What Happens Now: 21 st Century Writing in English conference (University of Lincoln, 2012)

Sandra Dinter (Leibniz Hanover, Germany), ‘ “It’s like a TV planet that’s all about us”: Postromantic Childhood and Television in Emma Donoghue’s Room’, paper delivered at What Happens Now: 21 st Century Writing in English conference (University of Lincoln, 2012)

  Anne Fogarty, ‘Tales o f Becoming? : Childhood and Adolescence in Contemporary Irish Fiction,’ paper delivered at ESSE-11 conference (Istanbul, 2012)

Marcela  Chmelinová , ‘Emma  Donoghue : Room – Translation and Analysis’ (BA thesis, University of Masaryk, 2012)  

Ann-Sofie Lacroix, 'Jack, the Explorer: Analysis of the Unreliable Child Narrator and the Mother-Child Dyad in Emma Donoghue’s  Room (2010)' (MA thesis, University of Leuven, 2011-12)

Ben Davies, ‘Exceptional Intercourse: sex, time and space in contemporary novels by male British and American writers’ [coda about Room ], (thesis, University of St Andrews, 2011)   

Fintan O’Toole, ‘Future Fictions’, in Princeton University Library Chronicle (LXXIII), Autumn 2010, 407-18. Fascinating essay that puts Room in the context of other current Irish fiction focused on young protagonists.

‘The Q&A: Emma Donoghue’, http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2010/11/room

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/bookclub/2011/01/live-chat-with-emma-donoghue.html

‘Living Room’, Emily Landau, http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2010/10/25/living-room/#more-8609

Ron Charles, ‘The teeny, tiny world of little Jack’, Washington Post Book World , 15 September 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/09/14/ST2010091406651.html

Malcolm Jones, ‘No Exit’, Newsweek , 9 September 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/09/books-a-room-with-no-view.html

Aimee Bender, ‘Separation Anxiety’, New York Times Book Review , 19 September 2010

Nicola Barr, ‘Upstairs, Downstairs… A Child’s Chamber of Horrors’, Observer , 1 August 2010

Declan Hughes, ‘This Book Will Break Your Heart’, Irish Times , 24 July 2010

Mary Shine Thompson, ‘A Room With a View’, Irish Independent , 24 July 2010

‘The NS Books Interview: Emma Donoghue’, http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/10/fritzl-case-novel-child-room

Boyd Tonkin, ‘Room With a Panoramic View: How Emma Donoghue's Latest Novel Aims to Tell a Universal Story’, Independent , 6 August 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/room-with-a-panoramic-view-how-emma-donoghues-latest-novel-aims-to-tell-a-universal-story-2044373.html . A particularly insightful article.

‘I Knew I Wasn’t Being Voyeuristic’, interview by Sarah Crown, Guardian , 13 August 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/13/emma-donoghue-room-josef-fritzl

Emma Donoghue, ‘Finding Jack’s Voice: Some Thoughts on Children and Language’, in Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile, and Breaking the Rules , ed. Jared Bland (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2011).

Emma Donoghue, ‘The Little Voices In Our Heads That Last a Lifetime’, Irish Times , 7 August 2010

Novels Menu

• The Paris Express
• Learned by Heart
• The Pull of the Stars
• The Sealed Letter

© 2024 EmmaDonoghue.com.  Privacy Policy .

Book Review: The Room

The child's point of view is often surprising and unexpected.

Posted December 22, 2015

• Understanding Attention
• Take our ADHD Test
• Find a therapist to help with ADHD

I just completed reading the 2013 book, Room , by Emma Donoghue. For anyone who hasn’t read the book or seen the movie, it is written from the perspective of a five-year-old boy who—at the time the book opens—has spent his whole life in an 11 x 11 room with his mother. The mother and son are captives of an abductor who took the mother when she was 16 years old and kept her for seven years inside the room which was actually a shed on his property.

What makes the book so powerful is that it truly captures the world from the perspective of a child and what the story shows so clearly is that what adults think and believe and know about what is best for children is not always consistent with what children like or want.

From the adult point of view, the child was being abused and damaged because of his constrained life, but from his point of view he was happy as long as he had the love and attention of his mother. Thus, once the mother and son escaped/were rescued (I won’t give away the plot), the child was actually traumatized by the experience. Adults acted as if he was finally safe now that he was removed from his abduction situation, but for the first time in his life he actually felt unsafe. This is not to say that he should have been left where he was, only that when mental health professionals work with abducted and alienated children it is essential to recognize that the child’s experience may be very different than what we as adults and professionals think it should be.

This is consistent with what we know about abused children who are generally not grateful for being “rescued” from the abuser, especially at first. Working with children requires knowing what is best for them but also knowing what feels right to them and understanding that the two might not be the same. Being sensitive to the perspective of the child victim is an essential part of the healing process.

Amy J.L. Baker, Ph.D. , is an author and the director of research at the Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection at the New York Foundling.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

It’s increasingly common for someone to be diagnosed with a condition such as ADHD or autism as an adult. A diagnosis often brings relief, but it can also come with as many questions as answers.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

Book review: ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue

• Copy Link URL Copied!

The more you know about Emma Donoghue’s ninth novel, “Room,” the harder it is to assess.

That’s a tricky issue, since “Room” is one of the hot books of the moment: shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, with coverage everywhere. If you’ve heard about it, you know the setup: The novel is narrated by a 5-year-old boy named Jack, who was born and has spent his entire life in a room (a fortified garden shed, really) with his mother, imprisoned by the man who kidnapped her seven years before.

For Ma, life in Room — which is what Jack calls their zone of containment — is an ongoing torment, mitigated only by the desire to protect her son. For Jack, the situation is somewhat different, since Room is the only world he’s ever known. Each is the other’s one connection to what we might call normal life. “Women aren’t real like Ma is,” Jack explains early in the novel, “and girls and boys not either.”

These are the basics, which we learn in the first 30 or 40 pages of the book. Still, to have even that small bit of information irrevocably alters how we engage with the work.

The conceit of “Room,” after all, is to unfold slowly, piece by piece. This is one reason to have a child narrate the novel: to connect us with a mind of which we are not completely certain, so that we need to decode the voice and the story it tells.

Once we know the framework, we lose a kind of purity, an unfettered relationship with the text. That’s not Donoghue’s fault, but it does make for an inadvertent irony, in which the best way to read “Room” may be in a Room of the imagination, a literary isolation chamber, if you will.

As to why this is important, “Room” depends entirely on voice to be successful, and voice is a fragile thing. Push too far in one direction and it becomes a gimmick, too far in the other and it grows obscure.

Of course, it is a gimmick to have a 5-year-old narrate a novel, just as it was for Alice Sebold to write “The Lovely Bones” from the perspective of a 14-year-old girl who had been raped and killed. And yet, like Sebold, Donoghue has other aspirations than merely to see if she can pull it off.

Apparently inspired by the experiences of Elisabeth Fritzl and Jaycee Dugard — both of whom were held for many years by captors (in Fritzl’s case, her father) by whom they bore children — she has said that to frame this story through a mother’s eyes “would be too obviously sad.”

With Jack, however, the question of confinement becomes more nuanced, since he has no experience of “Outside.” Early in the novel, Ma tries to explain; “There’s more things on earth than you ever dreamed about,” she says. “That’s ridiculous,” Jack thinks, “Ma was never in Outside.” It’s a telling moment, both because of the limits of the boy’s imagination and the precociousness of his thinking, his ability to conceptualize the world (such as it is) around him and give it an interpretation all his own.

Such a double vision is essential to Donoghue’s intentions, but it doesn’t always work.

At times, we’re right with Jack, as when he notes that “[i]n Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world … so there’s only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.” This observation comes late in the book, after he has learned more about Outside, but what makes it resonant is that it draws us, almost without thinking, into both his language and his point of view.

Not so effective are those moments when he is less in his head, more directly engaged with his environment, especially the two major plot turns, coming about a third and two-thirds of the way through the novel, in which his bond with Ma is tested and he must (literally and figuratively) strike out on his own.

I’m being purposely vague because I don’t want to give away more of the story than is necessary; here too there is an element of surprise, of discovery, meant to alter how we think of not just the narrative but also Jack himself.

Still, in both big shifts — and they are big shifts — things unfold too quickly, without sufficient context, inconsistent with how the characters behave. “We’re like people in a book, and he won’t let anybody else read it,” Ma offers, in a brief metafictional aside. But even as Jack considers “how … people in a book escape from it,” we wonder at his ability to make sense of everything.

To mitigate that, perhaps, Donoghue repeatedly cites children’s stories — primarily “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Jack and the Beanstalk,” both of which echo the novel in certain ways. Where are Jack and Ma, after all, if not down the rabbit hole, or under the sway of a capricious giant, who feeds on their fear?

Yet for all that Jack (in the case of “Room,” as well as the beanstalk) tries to help his mother, the broader associations get a little tangled, especially when it comes to Alice, who was both a wise child and, like Ma, from a different place. “I’m like Alice,” Ma tells Jack. “…I’m from somewhere else, like her.”

Clearly, Donoghue means to dramatize the back story of every fairy tale: the cautionary saga, the darkness at the center of the world. But if “Room” vividly evokes these dangers, it is, in the end, too limited in its point of view.

“When I was a little kid, I thought like a little kid,” Jack tells us, “but now I’m five I know everything.” Maybe so, but that’s a tall order for any 5-year-old, and even more for one who has spent his life within the walls of Room.

[email protected]

More to Read

Richard Powers’ latest epic: Fragile oceans, fraught tech and exhilarating writing. At first

Sept. 16, 2024

You go to this L.A. play. When you get there, you find out you have 60 minutes to escape

Aug. 15, 2024

10 books to add to your reading list in August

July 31, 2024

The biggest entertainment stories

Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

David L. Ulin is the former book critic of the Los Angeles Times. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author or editor of nine books, including “Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles,” the novella “Labyrinth,” “The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time” and the Library of America’s “Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology,” which won a California Book Award. He left The Times in 2015.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Lauren Sánchez, Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, faces lawsuit over her new children’s book

Column: Taylor Swift and the mystery of the undecided voter

YFN Lucci’s attorney confirms imprisoned rapper is still alive amid death rumors

Sept. 19, 2024

Review: A Hollywood star wants more time, but ‘The Substance’ doesn’t give her a reason

Most read in entertainment & arts.

Dave Navarro draws on Walt Whitman to explain Jane’s Addiction issues

Sept. 18, 2024

Don’t have time for a ‘WandaVision’ rewatch? What you need to know for ‘Agatha All Along’

Entertainment & Arts

Michaela DePrince, resilient ballerina who worked with Beyoncé and Madonna, dies at 29

Michael Madsen files for divorce from wife of 26 years

By Emma Donoghue

'Room' by Emma Donoghue is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that explores the themes of trauma, resilience, and the human capacity for adaptation.

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

Donoghue chose to tell the story from Jack’s point of view, a five-year-old boy, allowing the reader to see the world through the eyes of a child. This alters the reader’s understanding of the events substantially, especially considering how little Jack knows and understands about his situation.

Spoiler-Free Summary of Room

‘ Room ‘ is a novel about a young boy named Jack, who has spent his entire life in a small room with his mother, Ma. The two were kidnapped by a man named Old Nick, and Jack was born in the room as a result of their captivity. The novel explores the long-term effects of trauma, particularly on Ma, as well as Jack’s struggle to adjust to the world beyond the room. 

When Jack turns five, Ma reveals to him that there is a world outside of the room, and the two devise a plan to escape from Old Nick and the room. The novel portrays their journey toward recovery and adjusting to the outside world. The novel is a powerful exploration of trauma , the human spirit, and the bond between a mother and child.

Full Summary of Room  

Warning – This article contains important details and spoilers

‘ Room ‘ is a novel by Emma Donoghue that tells the story of a young boy named Jack who has been living his entire life in a single room with his mother, Ma. The story is told from Jack’s point of view, and he has never known anything beyond the four walls of his small space. His mother was kidnapped at the age of 19 by a man who has kept her captive for seven years, and Jack was born in the room as a result of this captivity.

The novel begins with Jack’s fifth birthday, which is a significant milestone for him as he has always believed that everything he sees on the TV is “fake,” and his mother has been telling him that the only things that exist are the things in their room. 

However, on this day, Ma reveals to Jack that there is a whole world outside the room and that they must escape from their captor, who they refer to as “Old Nick.” Jack is initially frightened and resistant to the idea, as he cannot imagine living in a world beyond the small space he has known his whole life.

Eventually, Jack agrees to help Ma escape, and they devise a plan that involves Jack pretending to be sick and Old Nick taking him to a hospital, where they will alert the authorities. The plan works, and Jack and Ma are finally freed from their captivity. However, the outside world is a shock to Jack, and he finds it difficult to adjust to the new reality. He struggles to understand the concepts of space, time, and relationships with others , as he has never experienced any of these things before.

As Jack slowly begins to adjust to his new surroundings, the novel explores the long-term effects of trauma, particularly on Ma. She is struggling to cope with the after-effects of her captivity, and the novel portrays her as being haunted by the memories of her captivity. She also finds it difficult to relate to her family, who she has not seen in seven years, and who have all moved on with their lives. 

Additionally, Ma has to deal with the media attention that comes with being a survivor of a high-profile kidnapping, which further adds to her stress.

The novel explores the relationship between Jack and Ma in depth. Ma is fiercely protective of Jack and wants to ensure that he has as normal a childhood as possible, given their circumstances. 

Jack’s understanding of the world is still limited, though, and he struggles to understand why his mother is behaving the way she is. There are times when he resents her for keeping him confined to the room for so long, but he also loves her deeply and is devoted to her.

The novel also explores the concept of freedom and what it means to different people. For Jack, freedom is initially frightening and overwhelming, and he finds it difficult to adjust to the new reality. However, as he begins to explore the world outside the room, he discovers the joy of new experiences and the beauty of the natural world. 

For Ma, freedom means being able to reconnect with the world she was torn away from, but it also means confronting the trauma of her captivity and coming to terms with the fact that her life will never be the same.

In the end, Jack and Ma are able to find a new sense of normalcy, and the novel ends on a hopeful note. However, the long-term effects of their captivity are still present, and the novel does not shy away from portraying the difficulties of their journey toward recovery.

What is Room about? 

‘ Room ‘ is a novel about a young boy named Jack who has been living his entire life in a small room with his mother, Ma. The two were kidnapped by a man named Old Nick, and Jack was born in the room as a result of this captivity. The novel explores the long-term effects of trauma, particularly on Ma, as well as Jack’s struggle to adjust to the world beyond the room.

What is the significance of Jack’s fifth birthday in the novel?

Jack’s fifth birthday is significant because it is the day when Ma reveals to him that there is a world outside of the room. This revelation prompts Jack and Ma to devise a plan to escape from Old Nick and the room.

How does the novel explore the theme of trauma?

The novel portrays Ma as being haunted by the memories of her captivity, and she struggles to cope with the after-effects of the trauma. Additionally, the novel explores the long-term effects of trauma on Jack, who struggles to adjust to the new reality of the outside world.

What is the relationship between Jack and Ma like in the novel?

The relationship between Jack and Ma is explored in depth throughout the novel. Ma is fiercely protective of Jack and wants to ensure that he has as normal a childhood as possible, given their circumstances. However, Jack’s understanding of the world is still limited, and he struggles to understand why his mother is behaving the way she is.

How does the novel explore the concept of freedom?

The novel explores the concept of freedom through Jack’s journey toward adapting to the world beyond the room. Initially, freedom is frightening and overwhelming for Jack, but he eventually discovers the joy of new experiences and the beauty of the natural world. For Ma, freedom means being able to reconnect with the world she was taken from.

Join Book Analysis for Free!

Exclusive to Members

Save Your Favorites

Free newsletter, comment with literary experts.

About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

About the Book

Discover the secrets to learning and enjoying literature.

Join Book Analysis

The Book Report Network

• Bookreporter
• ReadingGroupGuides
• AuthorsOnTheWeb

Sign up for our newsletters!

Find a Guide

For book groups, what's your book group reading this month, favorite monthly lists & picks, most requested guides of 2023, when no discussion guide available, starting a reading group, running a book group, choosing what to read, tips for book clubs, books about reading groups, coming soon, new in paperback, write to us, frequently asked questions.

• Request a Guide

Advertise with Us

Add your guide, you are here:, reading group guide.

• Discussion Questions

Room by Emma Donoghue

• Publication Date: May 18, 2011
• Genres: Fiction
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• ISBN-10: 0316098329
• ISBN-13: 9780316098328
• About the Book
• Reading Guide (PDF)
• Critical Praise

• How to Add a Guide
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Newsletters

Copyright © 2024 The Book Report, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
• Thrillers & Suspense

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Room: A Novel Paperback – May 18, 2011

• Print length 352 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Back Bay Books
• Publication date May 18, 2011
• Dimensions 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
• ISBN-10 0316098329
• ISBN-13 978-0316098328
• Lexile measure HL730L
• See all details

Customers who bought this item also bought

From the brand

Read more from Emma Donoghue

Visit the Store

Editorial Reviews

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (May 18, 2011)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316098329
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316098328
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ HL730L
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.9 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
• #579 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
• #908 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
• #2,544 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Videos for this product

Click to play video

Watch before you buy this amazing book

Erin ✨Here We Go Mom Reviews

About the author

Emma donoghue.

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the international bestseller "Room" (her screen adaptation was nominated for four Oscars), "Frog Music", "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter," "Landing," "Life Mask," "Hood," and "Stirfry." Her story collections are "Astray", "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits," "Kissing the Witch," and "Touchy Subjects." She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 56%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 28%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 11%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 3%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 2%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers find the book compelling, innovative, and hard to put down. They describe the story as incredible, satisfying, and real. Readers also find the emotional content haunting, beautiful, and bittersweet. They praise the characters as incredible and powerful. They find the novel unique and original. Customers also mention the message is uplifting and touching.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the book compelling, realistic, and a page-turner. They also describe the writing as captivating, brilliant, and innovative. Readers also appreciate the striking attention to language and detail.

"...I cannot even tell you how brilliant and engrossing this book is and how riveted I was by Jack's world and, behind it, the darker shadow world that..." Read more

"...This novel is the best I've read this year, deserves multiple rereads , and is now among my favorites...." Read more

"...eleven by eleven foot garden shed, is by turns gripping, harrowing, thoughtful , and delightful...." Read more

"...In summary, the author wrote a very creative , harrowing and unique story. And quite a sad one, too...." Read more

Customers find the story incredible, strong, and straightforward. They say the events feel real, the child is believable, and the conclusion feels cathartic. Readers also mention the book is hard to put down and a good story for new therapists to learn from.

"...one I posed to you above, and the results can be found in her brilliantly disturbing yet heartbreakingly beautiful novel ROOM...." Read more

"...The storyline is gripping being both heart warming and wrenching, along with bittersweet, traumatizing, beautiful, hopeful and cathartic...." Read more

"...boy who, readers would abandon soon enough, but Jack's story, horrifying and uplifting , simple and complex, made it near impossible to turn away and..." Read more

"...years in an eleven by eleven foot garden shed, is by turns gripping, harrowing , thoughtful, and delightful...." Read more

Customers find the story haunting, beautiful, and emotional. They say the book is worth all the angst and sorrow they feel for Ma and Jack. Readers also mention the story itself is sad, enchanting, and depressing.

"...is gripping being both heart warming and wrenching, along with bittersweet , traumatizing, beautiful, hopeful and cathartic...." Read more

"... Room is emotionally powerful and pushes us to rethink how we might respond to such circumstances...." Read more

"...That may cover my last big reason for liking this book -- its emotional impact ...." Read more

"...It was worth all of the angst and sorrow I felt for Ma and Jack...." Read more

Customers find the characters incredible, powerful, and convincing. They also appreciate the realistic portrayal of unconditional and self-sacrificing maternal love. Readers mention the story and characters keep them riveted. They appreciate the fresh and innocently provocative voice of the protagonist.

"...The mother in the book is an incredible character ...." Read more

"...The boy emerges as a vivid, and lovable, personality , and his changing perceptions are a major part of the story...." Read more

"...as a mother of two boys that age, let me tell you two things: Jack's voice is perfect , and Jack's voice will make you fall in love with him...." Read more

"...of Emma Donoghue, but based on just this novel she is a master of character development ...." Read more

Customers find the book unique, original, and fascinating. They also describe it as a beautiful, glorious, and moving masterpiece.

"...heart warming and wrenching, along with bittersweet, traumatizing, beautiful , hopeful and cathartic...." Read more

"...On the contrary, I thought it was unique , engaging, even nail-bitingly suspenseful at times...." Read more

"...As a work of literature, I'd probably recommend this book because it's unusual and well done...." Read more

"...The novel is rather unique , and manages to be so without sounding too gimmicky...." Read more

Customers find the message uplifting, touching, and full of life. They also say the premise shows promise and the book is impactful. Readers mention the stories of real people make the book relevant and believable.

"...I think it's an important , and timely topic, and I really enjoyed thinking about it from a different perspective...." Read more

"...and it does carry with it an ultimate message of hope, love, and healing ...." Read more

"...It is at times dark and disturbing but it is also full of life and love ...." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book. Some mention it moves quickly, while others say it starts off slow and drags on.

"...Yes, this book will disturb you, but it will also uplift you and show you how good can grow from evil, that love can save you, and that what is..." Read more

"...*spoilers* the rescue does seem to happen too fast and the post-rescue bit drags on ...." Read more

"...along with bittersweet, traumatizing, beautiful, hopeful and cathartic ...." Read more

"...I thought the book started off slow , with Jack's descriptions of Room, but then it picked up in the middle, only to slow down again at the end...." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the difficulty of reading the book. Some mention it's very difficult yet important, while others say it'll be difficult at times to follow and often obnoxious.

"...Absolutely, but with a warning that it isn't an easy book to read , but well worth the journey." Read more

"...would abandon soon enough, but Jack's story, horrifying and uplifting, simple and complex, made it near impossible to turn away and put the book..." Read more

"...It just sounded too catchy and un-doable : a story told from the point of view of a young boy with no experience of the world other than the single..." Read more

"...All I can say is I wish I could be the mother Ma is. She demonstrates so much patience , creativity, and concern for her child in the midst of bleak..." Read more

Reviews with images

Sad Situation, Good Read

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

• Brows & Lashes
• Wellness & Day Spa
• More... Braids & Locs Tattoo Shop Aesthetic Medicine Hair Removal Home Services Piercing Pet Services Dental & Orthodontics Health & Fitness Professional Services Other

The Groom Room

Adult haircut, haircut and beard, clipper head shave, head shave and beard, kids haircut, enhancements, see our work.

• Barbershops in Houston, TX