It won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for best Canadian novel), the Commonwealth Prize (Canada & Carribbean Region), the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards (Fiction Book and Author of the Year), the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award, the W. Told entirely in Jack’s voice, Room is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.Īn international bestseller as soon as it was published in August 2010, Room has now sold well over two million copies. When he turns five, he starts to ask questions, and his mother reveals to him that there is a world beyond the walls. Let's just hope it's rent-controlled, too.Room(London: Picador Toronto: HarperCollins Canada New York: Little Brown, 2010), my Man-Booker-shortlisted seventh novel, is the story of a five-year-old called Jack, who lives in a single room with his Ma and has never been outside. The complex Ma moves to is called Independent Living, a place where Ma can live independently from the Clinic, and, in a brilliant move of double meaning (nice job, Emma Donoghue) Jack and Ma can learn to live independently from each other in separate rooms. The most important room, though, may be his own bedroom, which belongs to him and to him alone, which he gets when Ma moves into her own apartment at the end of the book. He and Ma stay at The Cumberland Clinic, and Jack gets some space to himself at Grandma's house.

Jack lives in a few different rooms in the Outside world. By the time Jack is five, it's at least in the late 2000s. And Ma doesn't know what YouTube or Facebook are until she gets out of Room, so she could very well have been kidnapped in 2001 or 2002. Jack knows who Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West are, which puts us into at least 2008. We're a little more confident in pinning down the time period. (Perhaps Ireland, where Emma Donoghue is from?) state quarters in her purse, but Jack calls his butt a 'bum' (3.717) and someone calls him a 'lad' (4.1368), which makes it sound like they're on the other side of the Atlantic. But we're not even sure what country we're in. We're not sure exactly which city they're in, but they're definitely in a city filled with tall buildings, many playgrounds, and a large mental healthcare Clinic. When Ma's escape plan works in the second half of the book, she and Jack find themselves in the Outside world. It's locked by a special keypad and only Old Nick, the kidnapper, knows the code. (Read more about Room on our ' About the Title' page.) Room is separated from Outside (i.e., the whole rest of the world) by Door, which is made of 'shiny magic metal' (1.72). It's in the backyard of a kidnapper's house, and it's where the kidnappers has held a girl for seven years. The first half of the book takes place in Room. Room and Outside, circa 2008 Room for Two

Room by emma donoghue literary analysis