2011: Book 18

Room by Emma Donoghue


336 pages

Completed 2/26/11

This novel, told in the perspective of five-year old Jack who has never left the Room where he lives with his mother, is touching. While not entirely realistic, the terror of having someone be in complete control of your life and one-room existence is wonderfully portrayed.

The inflection given to Jack by Donoghue is insightful and touching; for a young child only exposed to his young mother, Jack is an intelligent boy. Post-escape, his discoveries of the real world that he was previously told was make-believe, are innocent and confusing, yet telling. This was a good read.

2011: Book #2

The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson


272 pages

Completed 1/5/11

This was one of those books that has been sitting in my bookshelf FOREVER so I decided to just start reading it. Based on a dream the author had, the story of a male dancer drugged and kidnapped by three women and held and sexually tortured for eighteen days and the subsequent effects of it on his life is a bizarre tale that somehow became a page-turner.

I feel as if I do not want to reveal too much of this book's story, because as the reader, I didn't see the majority of it coming. While unpredictable, the plot line remains fluid, and I never once regretted picking this one up. Yes, a bit bizarre and graphic in the early chapters, but watching the narrator's life as it unravels and reassembles is presented in such a way that you just have to know what happens next.