I didn’t want to read Emma Donoghue’s Room for a long time. I knew it would bother me, and I knew how tough it would be for me to read the book. Alas, my book club chose to read this book, and I went and bought it because I did not have a choice. And yes, I don’t like the book; I don’t recommend it to anyone.
Emma Donoghue wrote the book inspired by real events. It is very upsetting because there is nothing we can do to prevent the occurrence of disastrous events. So you just keep reading, realising the cruelness of the world. So I will never ever reread a book like this. Never. I have enough drama already in my life; I used to live in Istanbul. Anyways!
When reading becomes torture
So we shouldn’t read it just because it is upsetting? No, it’s not just about it. I never loved the novels that focused on a single character and excluded others. This book is one of them. Our protagonist is a 5-year-old boy. Although I do not have much problem with the protagonist being a child, I prefer others. Still, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’s protagonist was a child, and I liked him a lot. Anyways. I kept reading the book with utmost despair, saw the obnoxiousness of reality, I wanted to burn the book and done with it. But, I kept thinking, ultimately this is a literary work, right? There should be something for the reader to learn from it. There should be this “great thing” I must realise after all these disgusting events. However, there is nothing.
The author will leave you miserable. Nothing to learn, nothing to realise. Just terrible events, disgusting world and all. I couldn’t sleep for two weeks after reading this. So I won’t recommend this to anyone. There are much better books out there.
About the book: Room
Today I’m five. I was four last night going to sleep in Wardrobe, but when I wake up in Bed in the dark I’m changed to five, abracadabra.
Jack lives with his Ma in Room. Room has a single locked door and a skylight, and it measures ten feet by ten feet. Jack loves watching TV but he knows that nothing he sees on the screen is truly real – only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits there is a world outside.
Devastating yet uplifting, Room by Emma Donoghue is a luminous portrait of a boundless maternal love. It has sold more than two million copies, was a number one bestseller and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes. Few books have reached modern classic status so swiftly.
About the author: Emma Donoghue
Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue’s 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award. and Slammerkin won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
