Room

A Novel

By: Emma Donoghue

Narrated by: Michal Friedman, Ellen Archer, Robert Petkoff, Suzanne Toren

Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven 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. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2010 Emma Donoghue (P)2010 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"The award-winning best seller that became one of the most talked about and memorable novels of the decade, Room is "utterly gripping...a heart-stopping novel" (San Francisco Chronicle).

"Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence into horror and horror into tenderness. 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." (Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry)

"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." ( The New York Times Book Review)

One of the best novels ever!

The story was warm, frightening and reaffirming. Even though it covered a difficult situation, the book was heartwarming. One of the most impressive parts was the ending because I kept on wondering how the author could end a book like this, and she did it perfectly.

The narration was outstanding, especially for the little boy, which I assume was done by Michal Friedman. He made the boy real.

A tour de force!

Loved it!

I watched the movie first, great narrative and voice actors for this audible. I’m really picky with my choices and this is a great one to listen to.

Loved it!!!

This book was a great read (listen)!!!!! So real and heartfelt!!! The storytelling was awesome. This is a must read.

Great story!

This story was wonderful! I thought the child narrator was way better than some adult narrators trying to sound child like

This author has created a masterpiece !

It was a little strange in the beginning, and I was a bit apprehensive about continuing. But this book was one of the best that I have ever read or heard !!! I laughed & even cried, and for a person who struggles with emotion, that says a lot !!!

The viewpoints of the child made me smile and cry all at the same time.

The story was riveting and well thought out. It was hard to put down always hoping for a good outcome.

Best since The Help

In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, he says that if we were all prisoners chained in a cave, we would think shadows cast in the cave by the surface world were reality, and that if we were let out of the cave to see the surface world we wouldn't believe it. I wonder if Emma Donoghue decided to retell the allegory from the point of view of a five year old.

I confess that at first I didn't care for the 5 year old's narrator, but I let that go because the story is so well written. It does not for a second insult the intelligence. Imagine a book written from a science fiction perspective about what life is like on our planet. And the person telling you is five. And he has passing knowledge of the world but only through what is shown on television. This is that book.

Like The Help, this book uses several narrators which was a great choice. I am only at the halfway mark, but unless the end is horribly disappointing, I am halfway to one of the best books I've downloaded this year.

One of the most original books

This is one of the most original books I have listened to. At first I wasn't sure I would enjoy a story told by or narrated by a child but it was remarkably well done. I was also afraid the subject matter might be a bit depressing but it wasn't at all. Definitely worth the credit!

Incredible book!

I read Emma Donoghue's book Kissing the Witch, which was a superbly written story collection. That book kept me thinking for weeks. The Room will be in my thoughts forever, I think. The story is so sweet, so loving, so chilling, so scary--nothing about it seems false. It is skillfully read by different actors. Whoever read "Jack" is a genius and totally believable as a 5 year old child. I have told everyone who will listen to listen to this book. You won't look at our world the same way again.

Read this book, don't listen to it.

This is a magical story, that much is true. Other reviewer's warnings regarding narration are equally true. I read the reviews warning how the narration dulls the experience but discounted them in favor of all the reviews regarding the story. Now I see how one can so effect the other, don't listen to this book, go buy a copy/check out a copy of this book and snuggle up under a duvet near a window and read it. The voices are irritating and don't seem in sync, it's hard to imagine a recording session where the characters were even in the same room in the same conversation, it's all a beat off. Let your own mind fill in the voices and your experience will be far better than listening to the one provided here.