I long to write a book like this, with such empathy and creativity. It was genius to tell this story from the perspective of a five-year-old boy.

Ma was snatched from her college campus as a 19-year-old student, and held captive by a psychopath for seven years when we begin our story, told though her son Jack's eyes. The captor, known as Old Nick, impregnated Ma (we never learn her real name), and she was able to keep her son safe from him, and raise him as normally as possible, within their 11-foot square shed. The only world Jack knows is Room, and until he turns five, he believes that this IS the entire world, with anything outside of Room being on TV, or made-up, unreal. Ma realizes that she can no longer live like this, for her mental health or Jack's, and must tell him the hard truth of their lives.

The book is written with such sensitivity and empathy for what Jack and Ma are going through, her agony on almost nightly rapes by her captive, and her fierce instinct to protect Jack in every way, protect his innocence, his physical well being, and from any harm Old Nick could possibly inflict. She offers herself as sacrifice, until she can no longer, and a scheme must be devised to trick Old Nick and save Ma and Jack.

The reader might wonder what will happen next after they successfully escape Room and Old Nick. Isn't that the happy ever after? The author is far too wise for such simplicity. She realizes that the real story begins after Ma and Jack liberate themselves from Room, for now Jack must learn to adapt to all the wonder and anxiety freedom in the larger world offers, a world Ma can no longer shelter him from. Ma must restart her life, grieve for what she has lost that cannot be regained, and create a life for herself and Jack. Confinement in Room offered control of many life circumstances, but the wider world offers freedoms and choices, that we alone must take responsibility for.

I encourage you to read this creative, deeply-felt novel. It offers much for reflection in the life you build for yourself, and those entrusted to your care.