Upon finishing Room, I felt a big wave of satisfaction. Donoghue managed to make the book I never wanted to finish, have the most unimaginably poetic ending. So much so that I immediately started re-reading the book after I finished.
I think what made the book so intriguing to me was Donoghue's use of a five year old narrator. This literary choice allowed the book to come off as playful in its introduction and as a result immediately immersing me in the novel.
Donoghue did a really good job at slowly revealing important plot points throughout the beginning, all the while keeping in mind that the reader needs to get used to Jack's interesting dialect. I remember the first strange thing that I picked up on was when Jack, nonchalantly, narrated, "I went to sleep in Wardrobe," but he had woken up in Bed in the novel's introduction.
While most of the beginning of the novel came off as a playful interpretation of a horrific situation, when Ma and Jack started planning the escape, the whole mood of the book changed from a light hearted narration of living in room, to an intense race against the clock.
It was almost like I could hear Jack's heart pumping throughout the entire Dying section, he had just learned that there is a world outside room and now he was expected to execute an escape plan or else risk the death of both himself and Ma. The end of Dying was so intense that in the very end I thought that Jack's reunion with his mother was just his mind trying to cope with a fearful reality.
The chapter After started to kind of lose me as a reader, but the need to see Jack react to all of the new ideas and objects kept me reading. Living however re-grabbed my attention as the new dynamic of Jack without Ma appeared in the book. My favorite section probably being Jack's aloof riddance with his long hair.
Ma and Jack's reunion reins the whole story back in and establishes Jack as a master of both worlds, especially as he exits Room for the final time, remembering its good times (taking Ma's drawing of him) but never looking to go back.
I loved Room's ending. I thought it was so cool that Donoghue brought it back. It reminds me of when an adult comes back to their elementary school and discovers that it is so much smaller than they remembered. For me, Living and Dying were definitely the most different sections. Nice job, Sarah!!
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