Room

A Novel

De: Emma Donoghue

Narrado por: Suzanne Toren, Ellen Archer, Michal Friedman, Robert Petkoff

The award-winning bestseller 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). Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time.

To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. 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's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer.

Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating — a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child.

Room inspires us to appreciate little things

We take for granted so many things during our day to day lives. Room offers a perspective that challenges the conveniences that most of us believe we are entitled to. I enjoyed the child in the story and was intrigued by the relationship and level of communication that developed between mother and child; influenced so strongly by the mother's survival instincts. The author did an outstanding job of capturing the "unnoticed" within such a limited world and sharing it with the reader.

Good story....some irritating aspects

What did you love best about Room?

The story, seemingly ripped from actual headlines, gives us an in depth look at sinister secrets and crimes.

If you’ve listened to books by Emma Donoghue before, how does this one compare?

Same

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

A wise cast of characters/voices made the book all the better

Any additional comments?

I know the main character is a kid but I wanted to smack that kid sometimes. So irritating.

Amazing narration performance!

This was one of the best audio performances I have heard. Each narrator gave life to their character without being over-the-top or distracting. I don't know if the reader for Jack was really a little boy or just an excellent performer, but the voice was absolutely perfect for conveying the tone and suspense of the story. The story itself is gripping and I had a hard time turning it off when I needed to do other things.

Great listen

The story was hard to believe. I felt like I knew the little boy after only 45minutes into it. I kept thinking about him long after I listened. The narrators made the story so believable. I would definitely recommend this as an audiobook because the readers really do give life to this book. It should become a movie.

Interesting, but not as good as I had hoped

Overall, I thought the book was OK. However, I wasn't blown away by it and I'm not sure if it will truly be one that sticks with me.

Pros:
Interesting topic (and topic hasn't been too overdone recently)
Interesting perspective (from a 5-year old)
Many stages to the story
Provides closure in some areas

Cons:
Perspective (of 5-year old) was tiresome at times (would have preferred to be truly written in different voices)
Narrator took awhile to get used to (another reviewer's comment about Elmo wasn't far off - there is a whiny quality that could be hard to take at times)
I found it hard to like some of the characters even after taking into consideration what they had gone through (Ma, the Grandmother)

Overall I don't feel that I wasted my time with this novel, but after reading other reviews I was hoping for much more than was delivered.