February 18, 2011

Room, by Emma Donoghue


Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and winner of several awards, this book is compulsively readable. I finished it days ago and it still haunts me somewhat. When you read a book with a very definitive style of its own, do you find yourself thinking in that style? I do. I might find myself thinking Jane Austen-style, or Bridget Jones-style, or in this case, Jack-style. I kept on thinking to myself that I had "hotted" the food.

Jack is the 5-year-old narrator, who has lived his entire life in the 11 x 11 shack that his mother is held captive in as a sex slave. Chilling already, right? Throw in all this adorable innocent kid speech, such as hotting the beans, and you're captivated. There's an undercurrent of sadness running throughout, but it was far less dark than I expected.

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