ROOM by Emma Donoghue

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I read the reviews of ROOM, I didn't think I could bring myself to read it. A young woman is abducted and locked in a backyard hut, serving as her kidnapper's sex slave for years. I don't normally read gruesome, ripped-from-the-tabloids tales, especially one narrated by the five-year-old son of the prisoner and her keeper. But every review I read was more admiring than the last, so I had to give it a try. Once I started, I was hooked.

Jack, turning five as the story opens, has never known a person except his mother (and the shadowy figure of the man)or a world outside of Room. (The article-less name echoes a child's earliest speech: Ma. Bed. Room.) He does not know that he is a prisoner; he passes each day eating, sleeping, and playing with his mother. And yet through the amazing mother-son dialogue that fills the pages, we learn before he does the truth of his situation. Eventually he too must learn the truth, for only he can be the instrument of their escape.

ROOM is part thriller, part celebration of the bond between mother and child, part how-to manual for parents stuck at home with children. Donoghue imbues Ma with amazing creativity and resourcefulness as she struggles to give her child a "normal" life in an impossible situation. On a larger level, the story can be read as a metaphor for the lifelong move from total dependence to independence we all face--and the challenges that come with both bondage and freedom.




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ONE DAY by David Nicholls

Reading One Day was like eating popcorn--I just kept gobbling up the romantic misadventures of Londoners Emma and Dexter. We first meet them in 1988, when they hook up on the night of college graduation and begin a lifelong off-and-on relationship. Em's an intellectual who weighs herself down with introspection and worry about the world; Dex is a rich, handsome lightweight who lives for fame and fun. We follow this odd couple for almost twenty years, but we see them only on July 15th of each year--a trick of narrative compression Nicholls pulls off with enviable skill. His dialogue is unfailingly entertaining--his characters manage to be likable and funny even when they're behaving badly. As they get older and the misbehavior turns self- (and other-)destructive, you want to grab them and shake them because they've become your friends. And you realize you're totally immersed in this story, it's become your life, and that's why you love to read novels.

I still haven't made up my mind about the unexpected denouement. Write me if you get there.