Moira Fogarty's Reviews > Room

Riveting. Read this nearly in one sitting. Incredibly well crafted, this is a crazy but successful exercise in trying to inhabit the minds of people whose experience is far outside your own ken.

I wonder if Emma Donoghue wrote this purely from reading reports of abductions, or if she interviewed women who have lived through this particular hell - the frame of the story is a hybrid of several high-profile kidnapping cases, particularly those of Colleen Stan and Jaycee Dugard.

Narrating from the POV of Jack, the five year old, was a wise choice. It allows the nightmare of their situation to be blunted by his lack of full comprehension; wordplay comedy and bath time and Dora the Explorer dull the knife edge of fear that gripped me every time I witnessed the mother protecting Jack from the brutal truth.

Beyond her stoicism and endurance, Ma's creativity blew my mind; the toys they build from trash and the games she invents - particularly 'Parrot' - were so inventive and educational I wanted to take notes.

Probably one of the scariest books I have read in a long time, because of the awful reality that such abominable acts do happen. Worth reading.