A World All Their Own

We have all seen the headlines...girls held captive for years in sheds and small rooms, forced to be slaves to their captors.  The recent stories were Jaycee Dugard, kidnapped and held in a backyard in California for 18 years, and Elizabeth Fritzl, held by her father in a locked basement dungeon by her father.  Both women had children by their captors.  "Room" is the story of one such child.

Five-year-old Jack lives in the little one-room world that Ma has created for them.  His friends include Dora the Explorer, Plant, and TV, though he only gets to see TV for a little while each day.  Jack and Ma play games, learn new words, and read the few books that they have.  Jack loves Ma and Ma loves Jack.  But one person that Jack doesn't love is Old Nick.  Every night when Jack goes to sleep in the wardrobe, he hopes that Old Nick won't come so that Ma won't be sad again.  Jack doesn't get to see Old Nick, but he knows he's come when he hears the beeps of the opening door and the smell of the air from Outside.

Jack lives happily in this little world, as it's all he has ever known.  When Ma drops a bombshell one day and tells Jack that the world that he sees on TV is really in Outside, he doesn't know what to think.  And when she asks Jack to be very brave and rescue the two of them from Old Nick, Jack is forced to face the big scary world outside of his beloved Room.  At five years old, he could never be ready to deal with the changes that come to his and Ma's life when they enter Outside.

This is one of the most-talked about books of the year, and I completely understand why.  Emma Donoghue made a very hard story bearable by telling it through the innocent voice of a child.  While my heart broke throughout the entire book, first for Ma in her captivity and then for Ma and Jack in their freedom, I also found myself rooting for Jack and hoping that he would find his happiness again in the big new world.  Donoghue did an excellent job of taking these big news stories and putting real human faces to them.  It was also interesting to see how Ma and Jack's story didn't end with the rescue, that is actually just the middle.  Both of them experienced real struggles after they left Room, and these are the struggles that we don't hear about in the news.  The media story stops when the so-called torture ends, but there is still much more for these people to endure.

I had to prepare myself to read this book, thinking that it was going to be emotionally draining.  But Donoghue's method of telling the story through Jack made it much easier to read.  "Room" is worthy of all of the accolades and acclaim it has received, and I recommend it for adults who want to get behind the news stories we've heard so much about.