Room - Emma Donoghue

From Amazon:  To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

This one was recommended to me, but there's lots of hype about it right now so it was on my list of books to read anyway.  I ended up reading it unexpectedly when it came on my new (2nd hand) Kindle.  It's a quick, easy read and enjoyable, although I didn't find it all that remarkable.   Jack is the product of a kidnap/hostage/rape situation.  He lives with his young mother in a little storage shed and has never seen the outside world.  To him, everything that is outside his 'world' is not real.  His mother does the best she can to teach him reading and writing and maths with very limited resources.  It is interesting how the inanimate objects in the room become friends to him, as do characters on TV.  When he turns five his mother decides it's time for them to escape and sets about doing so.  Once on the outside world we watch as Jack struggles with this new world - all the overwleming stimuli and concepts and rules, as well as his confusion over why his mother doesn't want to go back to the world in which he felt safe and happy.

The ending was a bit of a let-down to me.  The climax (the escape) happened quite early in the story and then the resolution seemed to be a bit lacking.  It was a happy ending and were it non-fiction it would have been very pleasing to read but as a made-up story the ending seemed a bit lacking.  It was also fairly unbelievable - Jack was just too good and seemed to adjust too easily.  I didn't get the sense of panic that surely would have accompanied such a situation.  Overall a good quick read but not spectacular or really recommend-worthy.