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Room by Emma Donoghue

Jack is five. He lives with Ma in Room. Also there is Rug, Wardrobe, TV . . . Room is all Jack knows. He has not been Outside. Ma was a teenager when she was abducted by 'Old Nick' and locked inside what becomes revealed as an old garden shed. Through Jack's perspective the reader feels Ma's fierce love for her son and her need to protect him from both Old Nick and from the knowledge that there is a world outside their small Room with real people, toys, and wonderful things. However, Room cannot contain Ma and Jack forever, and the time comes when Ma knows she and Jack must leave at any cost.

I didn't think I would like this book at first, but halfway through I could not put it down. The real challenge for Jack is life outside Room. The innocence of Jack is heartbreaking amid what the reader knows his and Ma's reality really is, and amid the fast-paced and puzzling Outside.