“Stories are a different kind of true.”
Emma Donoghue
Day Twenty-Two: A Book That Makes You Cry
Room, by Emma Donoghue.
Room is an immensely powerful book. It’s told from the viewpoint of a five-year-old child, a five-year-old who has spent his whole life in one room, imprisoned with his mother; hence, of course, the title.
I swear, it’s better than it sounds.
It’s powerful because it’s childish. Jack – the aforesaid five-year-old – knows, or rather understands, nothing of what is going on, and yet, through his eyes, we know everything, the whole tragedy and novelty of the story. That’s an incredibly strange and wonderful thing, if you think about it. It’s very well-written, and yet it reads like a thriller. It’s clever and moving and thought-provoking, and you should definitely read it.
The English Student 