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Room: the unputdownable bestseller that inspired the Oscar-winning film Paperback – 7 Jan. 2011

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 31,226 ratings

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A major film starring Brie Larson, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Best Actress BAFTA Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize and a Richard and Judy Book Club selection.

Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don't have the key.

Jack and Ma are prisoners.

Room by Emma Donoghue is an extraordinarily powerful story of a mother and child kept in isolation, and the desire for, and price of, freedom.

'Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days.' – Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife

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Review

Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence into horror and horror into tenderness. Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days -- Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife

Room is one of the most profoundly affecting books I've read in a long time. Jack moved me greatly. His voice, his story, his innocence, his love for Ma combine to create something very unusual and, I think, something very important . . . Room deserves to reach the widest possible audience -- John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I've never read a more heart-burstingly, gut wrenchingly compassionate novel . . . As for sweet, bright, funny Jack, I wanted to scoop him up out of the novel and never let him go ―
Daily Mail

This is a truly remarkable novel. It presents an utterly unique way to talk about love, all the while giving us a fresh, expansive eye on the world in which we live ―
New York Times Book Review

Startlingly original and moving . . . Endearing and as utterly compelling as
The Lovely BonesScotsman

This book will break your heart . . . It is the most vivid, radiant and beautiful expression of maternal love I have ever read ―
Irish Times

I loved
Room. Such incredible imagination, and dazzling use of language. And with all this, an entirely credible, endearing little boy. It's unlike anything I've ever read before -- Anita Shreve

About the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, and now living in Canada, Emma Donoghue writes fiction (novels and short stories, contemporary and historical including The Pull of the Stars), as well as drama for screen and stage. Room, was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes, selling between two and three million copies in forty languages. Donoghue was nominated for an Academy Award for her 2015 adaptation starring Brie Larson. She co-wrote the screenplay for the film of her novel The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh and distributed by Netflix.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0330519026
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; Main Market edition (7 Jan. 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 412 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780330519021
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0330519021
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 22 x 15 x 2.5 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 31,226 ratings

About the author

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Emma Donoghue
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Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the international bestseller "Room" (her screen adaptation was nominated for four Oscars), "Frog Music", "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter," "Landing," "Life Mask," "Hood," and "Stirfry." Her story collections are "Astray", "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits," "Kissing the Witch," and "Touchy Subjects." She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
31,226 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book compelling and well-written. They describe the emotional content as heart-wrenching, poignant, and gripping. The writing quality is praised for its clever language and quick prose style. Readers find the story interesting and realistic. The book provokes thought-provoking questions about happiness and freedom. The pacing keeps them hooked and engaged.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

997 customers mention ‘Readability’941 positive56 negative

Customers enjoy the book's readability. They find the characters well-drawn and the story compelling. The simplicity of the story is spellbinding, and the author does a brilliant job of taking a thought and making it remarkable. The story is both open and satisfying at the same time.

"...Jack is beyond an average five year old in some ways, able to read fluently; this made sense as with endless hours to occupy in a small place, only..." Read more

"...Jack appears extremely competent and literate which shocks yet pleases the reader, and his yearning to learn more about what's "in outside"..." Read more

"...- other reviewers have gone before, but the simplicity of the story is totally spellbinding; narrated by Jack, the many quirks of an oftentimes..." Read more

"...I think that Donaghue has done a brilliant job of taking a thought that the entire world had "what must it have been like for them?"..." Read more

480 customers mention ‘Emotional content’339 positive141 negative

Customers find the emotional content gripping and poignant. They describe the story as touching, sad, and thought-provoking.

"...Room, can be described as a literary fictional drama, and was inspired by the harrowing imprisonment by Joseph Friztel upon his daughters...." Read more

"...To sum up, this story is compelling; beautiful; tragic; awful; laugh-out-loud-funny; thrilling and very, very emotional...." Read more

"A beautifully conceived and emotionally engaging novel...." Read more

"...There are also odd inconsistencies in the narrative...." Read more

471 customers mention ‘Writing quality’372 positive99 negative

Customers appreciate the writing quality. They find the dialogue clever and easy to read. The prose style is quick and easy, and the author does a wonderful job developing the story. The narrator's voice is poignant and relatable, making the tale understandable for readers.

"...Room is most certainly an alternative read that opened my eyes to the selfishness, and unnecessary desires of material possessions within modern life..." Read more

"A compelling and consistently written read - I don't think this author has bettered it since." Read more

"...Room is very well-written, the characters of Jack and his mother extremely well-drawn and the storyline beautifully played out...." Read more

"...This is a well-written and original book and fully deserves the hype it has received...." Read more

309 customers mention ‘Interest’296 positive13 negative

Customers find the book engaging and believable. They praise the vivid imagination and realistic writing style. The story flows smoothly, with a compelling plot and a disturbing theme.

"...It may be the perfect holiday companion because of how quickly you will want to read it, but it is most definitely NOT a throwaway book once you've..." Read more

"...to comprehend but then considering their situation I think it is quite believable...." Read more

"...to have it set from Jacks perspective was ingenious as it added a new element to the story, him questioning his surroundings, his relationships and..." Read more

"...-affirming tale; Jack's innocence, obsession with numbers and lively imagination makes the captive existence he and his Ma endure bearable for them..." Read more

271 customers mention ‘Thought provoking’251 positive20 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking and uplifting. They say it makes them stop and think about happiness and freedom. The message is one of hope, but it's uncomfortable. Readers appreciate the deeply empathic experience and clever deliberation on the strength of the mother. Overall, they describe it as an alternative read that opens their eyes to selfishness and unnecessary desires.

"...time, at times I found it disturbing but at other points it was heart warming, funny and throughout I kept turning the pages to find out what would..." Read more

"...Room is most certainly an alternative read that opened my eyes to the selfishness, and unnecessary desires of material possessions within modern life..." Read more

"...The mother was also, for me, so inspiring, reminding all of us what we can rise to in the face of adversity...." Read more

"...This is one of those books that makes you stop and think, it'll stick with you long after you finish reading it...." Read more

169 customers mention ‘Pacing’121 positive48 negative

Customers find the book's pacing engaging. They describe it as moving and intense, with an interesting setup to their life in the room. The story picks up pace and readers find it hard to put down.

"...story is compelling; beautiful; tragic; awful; laugh-out-loud-funny; thrilling and very, very emotional...." Read more

"...shown by both characters as the events of the plot unfold is profoundly moving...." Read more

"...It was a mix of baby-talk and complex adult dialogue. Half the time I felt like I didn't understand what he was talking about...." Read more

"...One of the strengths of this book is the pacing – Every milestone achieved brings with it a fresh challenge, just like child development!..." Read more

96 customers mention ‘Character development’89 positive7 negative

Customers appreciate the believable characters and empathy with them. They find the story engaging and start to understand the characters quickly. The narrator's voice is described as poignant and humorous. Overall, readers describe the book as an interesting and courageous novel that explores human resilience and inventiveness.

"...It's a lesson in the inventiveness and resilience of the human mind...." Read more

"...Donoghue does a wonderful job in creating characters that you can believe, Jack is not street smart but he is intelligent, his relationship with Ma..." Read more

"...think I’ll struggle to forget, so mesmerising is the tale, so appealing is its narrator and so horrifying a premise to dwell upon, I now understand..." Read more

"...I'm glad I stuck with it as Jack becomes an endearing character...." Read more

91 customers mention ‘Content’15 positive76 negative

Customers find the content unrealistic, repetitive, and predictable. They feel the narrative is too mature for a 5-year-old child, and the characters are naive.

"...Everything is seen through his eyes. His life is boring, stunted, deprived obviously and his narration is taken up with the endless repetition of..." Read more

"...I think while the time frame on the whole made for a slightly unrealistic content, stylistically it worked and was a decision well made." Read more

"...The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars as it was slightly predictable however this didn't detract my enjoyment form the book...." Read more

"...There is also much of interest missing from this book, because Donoghue chose to narrate the story through Jack...." Read more

An Engaging Main Character & Brilliant Dialogue
5 out of 5 stars
An Engaging Main Character & Brilliant Dialogue
As an author, myself, I found Emma Donaghue's novel, Room intriguing. It was the choice made by the Book Club I lead and, without exception when we met to discuss it, we agreed that we had thoroughly enjoyed the book! Nevertheless, at least two of us admitted to having reached a point when we'd seriously wondered where the book was going, and nearly gave up reading. Fortunately, we were saved in the nick of time by a plot development and a change in tempo.AN ENGAGING MAIN CHARACTERWriting from the Point of View of a five year old boy, Jack, the author, Emma Donaghue, shows remarkable observation. An engaging and endearing child, it soon becomes apparent that Jack is either very knowledgeable, or of above average intelligence. With only two characters on page for the first half of the book, you might think that dialogue would be lacking - but you'd be wrong.WRITING BRILLIANT DIALOGUEWith a narrative that includes Jack's observation of some ants which: "Ma splatted . . . so they wouldn't eat our food. One minute they were alive and the next minute they were dirt," and his reaction: "I cried so my eyes nearly melted off," who could fail to be charmed. Emma Donaghue's perception of a five-year old's thought and speech patterns was excelled only by her writing techniques. In all, a great choice.
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 November 2010
    I wasn't supposed to finish this book in less than 24 hours, there were other things I should have been doing (such as sleeping), but "Room" is the kind of book that once opened demands to be read. The characters in it stay with you long after the final page is turned.

    The Room of the title (capital letter intended as it is what the narrator calls it), is an eleven foot by eleven foot shed which is the whole world for one little boy, Jack, aged five and his mother. At the start of the book it is Jack's birthday, all seems normal as he is woken and given his present, but we soon realise that this is not a five year old in a normal situation by any means. As the book unfolds we learn that his 27 year old mother has been imprisoned after being kidnapped in a sound proofed shed with no windows and just a skylight for 8 whole years. In this time she has given birth and has constructed a whole universe for her son where there is no "outside" but where there are routines and rituals as the mother fights for some sort of normal, and indeed to survive.

    The whole book is seen through the eyes of Jack and in his language. Having a four and a half year old myself I did wonder how much this style would grate, but actually it works really well as we as readers discover the world along with Jack himself. On the cusp of leaving infanthood behind him Jack is beginning to wonder how things work, where does the man who brings food in the night time when he is asleep in "Wardrobe"get the food from and is the world he sees on TV real or imaginary? I was totally convinced by the veracity of Jack and never doubted his dialogue or his ability to process the world. Jack is beyond an average five year old in some ways, able to read fluently; this made sense as with endless hours to occupy in a small place, only five books and next to no actual toys, his childhood is obviously far from the average and given few distractions I imagine you would focus your child's development on the few areas you can control whilst trying to make the ones you can't bearable. Though bizarre in the extreme, this childhood is punctuated by a few familiar things like "dora the explorer" that any mother would probably recognise and his behaviour is authentic in terms of representing a five year old who wants to watch TV a little longer or doesn't want to go to bed, even if bed is the place you are hidden at night so you are not seen.

    All this might sound as if it makes for a depressing book - it's not at all, though it is at times horrifying it's never horrific as such. I found myself having to re-evaluate the things that surround my everyday existence, in Jack's world where items are so few and far between that they are almost personified - there's "Bed" and "Light", the limited things he knows being made proper nouns as, as far as Jack knows they are the only ones that exist. In my life there are probably too many "things"- only the bare essentials fill Room and any of them can be removed at any time, and the only way to fight back is to hide a race track you have drawn under Rug or make a toy fort out of bottles. It's a lesson in the inventiveness and resilience of the human mind.

    We never see anything through Jack's mother's eyes and indeed never know her name but by seeing the way she keeps her child occupied with PhysEd of sorts and making things out of old egg shell, and by what is a very authentic mother-child relationship we come to have a fair idea of who she is. For me she became more than a victim of an abuser and was a real, though not idealised mother - she's not perfect and there are days where she is "Gone", as Jack puts it, an adult reader can interpret the images that Jack gives and work out that her absences are depression and the "screaming game" at the skylight is an attempt to escape.

    Clearly the idea for this book has a basis is reality as there have been several high profile cases of late such as that of Natascha Kampusch who was kept imprisoned from the age of 10, that clearly inspired the book. I find it remarkable that the author could convince me so completely of the existence of Room and the characters, I really did want them to escape and could understand why the mum hadn't told Jack about the world outside. I felt scared for him as he started to find out more about the wider world where there are germs, hundreds of other people and far much more complexity - how would he cope if faced with a world where the amount of food and things there were was not controlled by a monster who comes at night and is named "Old Nick" - would real life measure up to life on TV that up to now was the only other reality you believe to exist? How would you cope with a world ready to label you as the "bonsai boy" or where journalists wanted to take pictures of you to share with a news hungry world?

    To find out I really suggest you read this book, it's perhaps the most remarkable work of fiction I have read for some time, at times I found it disturbing but at other points it was heart warming, funny and throughout I kept turning the pages to find out what would happen next, when I ended I wanted it to go on. Though the idea of a character who doesn't know the world is bigger than it seems is not new (think "The Truman Show" or even"Bolt"), this book does have an interesting twist on that idea and the author manages to turn the horrific into the compelling, for me the book worked on every level. I highly recommend it, it could be your most unforgettable read this year as it is mine.

    Note: I read this book in kindle format, it is also available in paper back and hardcover form - I haven't actually seen a physical copy of this book , but should note that in kindle there were a few typos and some odd formatting in parts, but this did not detract from the book.
    13 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 December 2012
    Room by Emma Donoghue is the seventh of her novels, and takes a more alternative direction in terms of literary writing style and content in comparison with her other works. Room, can be described as a literary fictional drama, and was inspired by the harrowing imprisonment by Joseph Friztel upon his daughters. The novel is narrated by Jack in a noticeably childlike manner, a five year old boy who lives locked away with his "ma" in room, a purpose built shed within Old Nick's garden.

    Room is a disturbing, traumatic tale of a mother who tries to raise her child after having been kidnapped at age nineteen by Old Nick, and consequently bears a child from him. Yet at the same time the relationship between Jack and "Ma" is a beautiful representation of the power of love, and the human instinct to survive and make the best of things in the most unusual situations.

    Through Jack's innocent and honest narration, we learn of the true horrors they both endure within their captivity, such as "Ma's" instruction for Jack to sleep in the wardrobe during the night, due to Old Nick's arrival. Jack refers to counting how many creaks Old Nick makes, a seemingly innocent childlike statement which reveals the horrific continuous rape his mother endures daily.
    Room is also a story of child development, and accentuates the necessity of reading and parental interaction upon learning and growing up. Jack appears extremely competent and literate which shocks yet pleases the reader, and his yearning to learn more about what's "in outside" highlights the inquisitiveness of children and their desire to learn new things about the world. In addition, as a reader we learn to care for Jack and almost want to protect him, especially when he becomes vulnerable towards the middle of the novel.

    It could be argued that the novel is a representation of the hidden unspoken struggles within modern life, or an eye opener of the true suffering that goes on in the world. Specifically noticeable through the representation of "Ma" who remains extremely brave, level headed and composed apart from when she is "gone," in order to ensure her son has a reasonable level of sanity and somewhat normality. However later on in the novel, the cracks most certainly begin to show, highlighting the alarming mental effects that can occur after such a horrifying ordeal.

    Room is most certainly an alternative read that opened my eyes to the selfishness, and unnecessary desires of material possessions within modern life. The novel highlighted to me how all you really need is an appreciation of what's around you, as well as an unconditional love for the people within your life. It could be said the novel has taught me some life lessons, and opened my eyes to what is really important, and if you are looking for a different and somewhat emotionally challenging read then Room is definitely the perfect choice.
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Love it
    Reviewed in Canada on 21 February 2025
    Loved it more than the movie. This book is a must read
  • mla
    5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisito pero la introducción debería estar al final, te lo cuenta todo!
    Reviewed in Spain on 21 March 2021
    Me ha encantado, uno de esos libros que se quedan en tu cabeza mucho después de haberlo leído. Muy bien escrito, no conocía a esta escritora pero leeré más de sus libros (aunque se ve que este es con diferencia su libro más popular). Un aviso: NO LEÁIS LA INTRODUCCIÓN antes del libro en sí si no conocéis la historia con antelación, es un espoiler masivo y me parece fatal que en ella se explique toda la historia hasta el final, no entiendo cómo han decidido hacerlo así, es lo único que no me ha gustado del libro y creo que debería estar al final, no al principio.
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  • Dâmaris Leite Ferreira
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
    Reviewed in Brazil on 18 December 2018
    Delightful!
  • Nori
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good book.
    Reviewed in Japan on 27 July 2022
    I was recommended from a coworker. Interesting.
  • Laurie
    5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous talent, great book
    Reviewed in Australia on 30 May 2020
    Emma Donoghue's book Room is a finely crafted piece of fiction that takes the reader inside an horrific circumstance through the eyes of a five year old boy. The first chapters create the sinister environment, providing clues about the reality of what is happening and tension builds as it is remains unclear that the situation will end successfully. The complexity of the resolution and aftermath are equally skillfully portrayed. The book moves from a frightening to a compelling read. Donoghue's deft talent is displayed through the convincing writing of the novel in the first person voice of a young boy. While not for the faint-hearted, the book is a fascinating and rewarding read.