To conquer: become

I wasn't sure about whether I was going to like February's book club choice, Emma Donoghue's Room. Probably not something I would have picked up by myself and I confess to being sceptical about it. In terms of the subject matter, the narration and, most heinous of all, a comparison to The Lovely Bones on the front cover. Also, something about the concept didn't quite sit right with me. It still doesn't and smacks faintly of cashing in, but at least it was done well and that charge is probably not a fair one. I'm also not sure I wanted to read any more about the Josef Fritzl case, which I ended up doing in passing, but that's probably my own fault. In some ways no story can really deal with the blunt facts of the case or can blur their awful edges; in other ways it's probably a book that needed to be written by someone. Just perhaps not quite so soon.

On the plus side, I did like it, if that's the right word for it. I didn't love it and it probably hasn't changed my life, but I certainly won't suggest that people avoid it like the plague. The stand-out feature of the book is the narration, all told from the perspective of five-year old Jack. It's well done and very well maintained. I worried about it, and initially it did alternate between being interesting to being annoying, but ultimately it was endearing and rewarding. It's certainly like little else I've read and he had a believable voice. Or at least as believable as I can envisage a five-year old who's never been outside of his prison cell, the eponymous room. Which is certainly an achievement.

As for the story itself, I wasn't quite sure where it was going to go – whether it would simply sit there, as it were, or whether it would go elsewhere. It turned out to be the latter, which was probably important in achieving the book's aim of dealing with the aftermath of the situation just as much as the reality of being trapped. And because it made me think and feel and imagine it achieved it, though at the same time I'm not sure I ever really could imagine it, as if it were me. At times it did feel a bit too much like I was looking in, as a reader rather than being absorbed into the fabric of the book.

It will be talked about and it will win prizes and will provoke a good discussion. The narration is well constructed, interesting and probably the best thing about the book. I feel the book would be a lot less without it – just another melodramatic tale of woe, which is what I feared it might be.

Book number: 13
Title: Room
Author: Emma Donoghue
Category: Book club choices/recommendations