Room

I have seen this on a few "best of" books, and when I am surfing the book lists, this seems to be one of the books that appears embedded within the stream of recommended reads.

I can't say that I am over the moon about this book. It was a provocative read, parts of it were really hard to wrap my mind around, some parts I skimmed over (just weren't going anywhere for me) and some parts I paid a lot of attention to. This is told from the perspective of five year old Jack and reveals the story of his upbringing in a 11 x 11 room (a reinforced garden shed) with his mother, whom had been kidnapped seven years previously.

This book is steeped in cultural references, for example, and it is insightful in some ways, and in other ways it fell somewhat flat for me- as a narrator Jack was at times great, and then the story around him seem to fracture and lose track a wee bit - which of course could be the point coming from a 5 year old narrator that has not lived a normal existence by any stretch of the word.

This is a quick and easy read (pretty much read it in a day because of a return trip on the skytrain), and I am sure it will stay with me because it is disturbing subject matter.... but I can't say that I would shout from the rooftops and say, wow, what a book. I am glad I read it so I have an opinion about it... and time to literally move on!

I should also mention I borrowed a copy of The Slap (I was intrigued by the idea, a book evolving out of a barbeque where an adult slaps a kid that isn't theirs) but I got about 10 pages in to it (then surfed some opinions on the book as I wasn't all that impressed) and I figure there are so many great books out there I haven't read yet, and this is a library book, that I will just take it back to where I got it from, which brought me to Room.