Room sets off on a Movie-of-the-Week premise – five-year old Jack has lived his entire life in a single room, victim along with his mom (Ma) of a tabloid kidnapping/imprisonment – and takes it farther, into Ellie Wiesel territory; human-kind’s capacity for adaptation, the saving power of love and the forces shaping one’s perception and world view. In doing so, it goes way beyond genre and expectation, offering insights relevant well-beyond the tiny population who’ve suffered any similar fates. Donoghue’s hand is, for the most part, light, as we sense Ma’s desperate coping mechanisms only thru Jack’s child-centric perceptions.  Donoghue allows us to feel the desperation of their escape attempt (the least believable element, until the Opra-esque TV interview which follows it) and the awkwardness of reunion with others after 7 years in their own little world. The novel’s intent at brevity is evident in some after-escape segments, but all in all that is a blessing, as Jack’s first-person voice can be a bit tiresome.

The final beats reinforce the author’s strongest theme – that for Jack their tiny  room was not a prison, but home, and in some ways a bit of a paradise: Ma all to himself 24/7/365, safe and filled with all he had ever known – and nearly all he ever wanted.  By making it his only world, Ma protected her baby, but at the same time, prevented him from understanding his true fate, and so from growing beyond its four, very limiting, walls

A useful analogy, and a keeper of a tale.