Room by Emma Donoghue

Room is narrated by 5-year-old Jack. Seven years ago, his mother was kidnapped and imprisoned in a soundproof room. Or Room, to Jack. He knows every bit of his tiny world by name, from Rug to Meltedy Spoon. His Ma has endless strategies for varying their routines, inventing games, and so on.

We end up admiring both writer and Ma for the creativity with which they respond to their limitations. Donoghue's choice of a child narrator helps avoid the emotional, potentially melodramatic distractions of such a powerful situation. Jack's narration also provides an interesting twist, since he loves his womb-like world, the only one he's ever known. His problems start when they leave it, and this too Donogue handles with her rich, compassionate imagination.

Two inconsequential but noticeable problems: First, Room is set in the United States, but Dublin-born Donoghue sometimes slips into UK/Irish turns of phrase: "slowcoach" where we'd say "slowpoke," "good-o" instead of "goody," and "what d'you fancy." There's also the "Will we [do this or that]?" usage where Americans say "Do you want to" or "Let's." I'm surprised that not one of her three editors caught this.

Second, Donoghue has done an amazing job of fully imagining life in Room, but I'd love to know how menstruation was handled and how her captor got hold of so many birth-control pills without a prescription.