Through Innocence and Naivety

Another book I finished this week, Room by Emma Donoghue. It's astounding! Let's go straight to the story. 

The story is narrated by Jack (5 years old). I got confused at the early pages by the way Jack defines things. He's living with Ma (his mother) in a "room" since he's born and he never go outside. He thought the "room" is their world and "outside" only exists in tv. 

Apparently, before Jack's born, Ma was kidnapped when she's a teenager by a bad guy and she's locked in a 11 square feet chamber and no one found her for 7 years. Could you imagine that? She's been raped, tortured and trapped in that room for 7 years!

Jack is her second child, the first one was a girl, but died during birth. I feel sick imagining how she managed to give birth on her own. Ugh. Ma can't stay any longer because she doesn't want to raise her son in that hell, so she's planning a great escape. Jack pretends to be dead, the bad guy takes him out and Jack runs away. He made it. The cops save Ma and arrest the bad guy. So Jack and Ma are free. But Jack finds it difficult to adapt with the real world as he still misses the room. The story ends happily though. 

First thing that makes my heart stops beating is how Jack and Ma love each other, of course, as in the love of mother and son. But this is different. Jack isn't like any other 5-years-old kids. But Ma's struggling to raise and teach Jack to be a good boy, even in the terrifying situation. It's a heart-gripping, you know. 

I can see what is life through the eyes of a little boy.

It's great and unique, changing innocence into horror, then into tenderness. It's a fiction, but real to me. I wonder what happens to those children and girls that have been kidnapped and haven't been found yet..are they still alive? God knows. Let's pray for them..

What Audrey Niffenegger (author of The Time Traveler's Wife) says about this book is true: when it's over you look up, the world looks the same but you're somehow different and that feeling lingers for days.