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Room (London: Picador; Toronto: HarperCollins Canada; New York: Little Brown, 2010), my Man-Booker-shortlisted seventh novel, is the story of a five-year-old called Jack, who lives in a single room with his Ma and has never been outside. When he turns five, he starts to ask questions, and his mother reveals to him that there is a world beyond the walls. Told entirely in Jack’s voice, Room is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.

An international bestseller as soon as it was published in August 2010, Room has sold close to three million copies. It won the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for best Canadian novel), the Commonwealth Prize (Canada & Carribbean Region), the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards (Fiction Book and Author of the Year), the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award, the W. H. Smith Paperback of the Year Award and the University of Canberra Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, International Author of the Year (Galaxy National Book Awards), the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium English Book Award. The American Library Association gave it an Alex Award (for an adult book with special appeal to readers 12-18) and the Indie Choice Award for Adult Fiction. The Canadian Library Association named it as an Honour Book in their Canadian Young Adult Book Award. The four-voiced audiobook version won one of three Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards and an Earphones Award.

The New York Times named it as one of their six best fiction titles of 2010 and the Washington Post included it in their Editors’ Top Ten. Room was also winner of a Salon Book Award for Fiction, an NPR Best Book of 2010, a New Yorker Reviewers’ Favorite, Bloomberg’s 2010 Top Novel, The Week Magazine’s Top Book 2010, and featured on many ‘best of the year’ lists including those of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Christian Science Monitor . Room was Amazon.ca and Indigo’s Best Book (as well as a Heather’s Pick) of 2010, fiction winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards, Top Pick of the Channel 4 TV Book Club, and also chosen by the Richard & Judy Book Club. Room was chosen as one of twenty-five titles to be given away by tens of thousands on World Book Night UK 2012.

A personal note: Room was inspired by… having kids; the locked room is a metaphor for the claustrophobic, tender bond of parenthood. I borrowed observations, jokes, kid grammar and whole dialogues from our son Finn, who was five while I was writing it. Room was also inspired by... ancient folk motifs of walled-up virgins who give birth (e.g. Rapunzel), often to heroes (e.g. Danaë and Perseus). Room was also inspired by… the Fritzl family’s escape from their dungeon in Austria – though I doubt I’ll ever use contemporary headlines as a launching point again, since I didn’t like being even occasionally accused of ‘exploitation’ or tagged ‘Fritzl writer’. But on the whole, publishing my seventh novel – and having the great good fortune to win new readers all over the world – has been a delight.

To buy Room

In the US, in paperback: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/emma-donoghue/room/9780316268356/

or ebook: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/emma-donoghue/room/9780316129114/

or multi-voiced audiobook: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/emma-donoghue/room/9781611138436/

In the UK/Ireland/Australia, paperback: http://www.panmacmillan.com/book/emmadonoghue/roompicador40thanniversaryedition?format=978144720281301

or audio : https://thereadinghouse.co.uk/products/room-by-emmadonoghue

In Canada, paperback: http://harpercollins.ca/books/Room-Emma-Donoghue/?isbn=9781443413695

or ebook: http://harpercollins.ca/books/Room-Emma-Donoghue/?isbn=9781443404365

Wherever you live, PLEASE support your local indie bookstore by buying from them either directly or through an indie-friendly hub such as bookshop.org or hive.co.uk.

TRANSLATIONS

Room has been translated into more than forty languages.

‘Astounding, terrifying… It’s a testament to Donoghue’s imagination that she is able to fashion radiance from such horror.’ – The New Yorker

‘One of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year. … For such a peculiar, stripped-down tale, it's fantastically evocative… Not too cute, not too weirdly precocious, not a fey mouthpiece for the author's profundities, Jack expresses a poignant mixture of wisdom, love and naivete that will make you ache to save him -- whatever that would mean.’ – Washington Post Book World

‘A feat of both infectious claustrophobia and controlled perspective.’ – Time

‘Heart-stopping… Donoghue’s utterly gripping plot may sound as if it has been ripped from headlines, but there's real art here… "Room" is a big wow.’ – San Francisco Chronicle

'Donoghue has created one of the pure triumphs of recent fiction: an ebullient child narrator, held captive with his mother in an 11-by-11-foot room, through whom we encounter the blurry, often complicated space between closeness and autonomy. In a narrative at once delicate and vigorous — rich in psychological, sociological and political meaning — Donoghue reveals how joy and terror often dwell side by side.' – note on Room ’s choice as one of five best fiction titles of 2010 in the New York Times

‘Donoghue navigates beautifully around these limitations. Jack’s voice is one of the pure triumphs of the novel… Thrilling and at moments palm-sweatingly harrowing… This is a truly memorable novel, one that can be read through myriad lenses – psychological, sociological, political. It presents an utterly unique way to talk about love, all the while giving us a fresh, expansive eye on the world in which we live.’ – New York Times Book Review (cover review)

‘Jack is precocious but entirely believable, his passage out of cloistered innocence more universal than you might think (it’s no accident, surely, that the book’s title rhymes with “womb”).’ – People (a People Pick)

‘Narrated by a 5-year-old boy so real you could swear he was sitting right beside you… Room has all kinds of emotional wallop. But what makes the emotion possible is that this book is built like a finely crafted instrument that perfectly merges art and function… Room is so beautifully contrived that it never once seems contrived. But be warned: once you enter, you’ll be Donoghue’s willing prisoner right down to the last page.’ - Newsweek

"Room" is indeed suspenseful, but the fact that it could well keep you up late, eager to find out what happens next, isn't the extraordinary thing about this novel… Without denying Jack's vulnerability, Donoghue allows an almost terrifying resilience to seep into his narrative — terrifying because the momentum that drives a child to adulthood, that sends him rocketing away from the past, is so relentless and inexorable. There's a wholeness to the conclusion of "Room" that doesn't resort to false tidiness and bogus uplift.’ – Salon.com

‘Sophisticated in outlook and execution… Ms. Donoghue makes the gutsy and difficult choice to keep the book anchored somewhere inside Jack’s head… Utterly plausible, vividly described.’ – New York Times

‘A novel so disturbing that we defy you to stop thinking about it, days later … beautifully served by Jack's wise but innocent voice.’ – O Magazine

‘Powerful, tension-filled and takes a big risk… Highly recommended.’ – Now

‘Claustrophobic, controversial, brilliant… inventive, tense, and stringently intelligent.’ - Macleans

‘Remarkable… heartrending… Both gripping and poignant, it’s a tribute to human resourcefulness and resilience and extremity, and a stirring portrait of a mother’s devotion.’ – Toronto Star

‘Riveting and original… a page-turner… With a good deal of cleverness and skill, Donoghue manages to build a level of suspense which makes the book impossible to set aside.’ – London Free Press

‘Inventive and disturbing… compellingly subversive.’ – Winnipeg Free Press

‘Somehow, via the narrative voice of Jack and his stoic and heroic making-sense in words of his small world, it breaks free of every preset category. This is a novel, and a child, that will not be confined…. Pungent and percussive, Jack’s new-minted language grabs hold of his constricted life with startling force and zest … The book often bounces along through its profound darkness with a near-comic exuberance.’ – Independent

‘Charming, funny, artfully constructed and at times almost unbearably moving, Donoghue mines material that on the face of it appears intractably bleak and surfaces with a powerful, compulsively readable work of fiction that defies easy categorization. … Part childhood adventure story, part adult thriller, Room is above all the most vivid, radiant and beautiful expression of maternal love I have ever read. Emma Donoghue has stared into the abyss, honoured her sources and returned with the literary equivalent of a great Madonna and Child. This book will break your heart." – Irish Times

‘As a life-affirming fable of parent-child love, and an antidote to the prurience of so much crime fiction, it's a triumph, and deserves to be a hit.’ – Daily Telegraph

‘It takes a consummate writer to make us marvel at the mundane. Beckett's Waiting for Godot did it, of course. So did Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich , set in a 1950s Siberian labour camp. Emma Donoghue does it so spectacularly that we are taken by surprise when, in the middle of the novel, resourceful Ma's escape plans swing into action… Donoghue’s great strength – apart from her storytelling gift – is her emotional intelligence.’ – Irish Independent

‘Both hard to put down and profoundly affecting... Donoghue has crafted a narrative that moves as breathlessly as a serial-killer thriller while convincingly portraying, with the precision of a science-fiction novel, how a boy might believe that a room is his whole world.’ – Sunday Times

‘A novel like no other … The grotesque is consistently balanced with the uplifting and there is a moment, halfway through the novel, where you feel you would fight anyone who tried to wrestle it from your grasp with the same ferocity that Ma fights for Jack, such is the author's power to make out of the most vile circumstances something absorbing, truthful and beautiful.’ – Observer

‘A celebration of the freedoms we take for granted. A gripping, moving read.’ – Time Out

‘The story is told with unsurpassed panache. … Room will certainly be much garlanded, and it will deserve every prize it gets. Fantastic.’ – Readers Digest

‘I’ve never read a more heart-burstingly, gut wrenchingly compassionate novel . . . As for sweet, bright, funny Jack, I wanted to scoop him up out of the novel and never let him go. In him, Donoghue has created 21st-century fiction’s most uniquely loveable voice.’ – Daily Mail

‘Not many writers, though, would have had the courage, or the ability, to visit this particular place and produce such a startlingly original and moving piece of work . . . it is a testament to Donoghue’s skill how quickly that voice becomes acceptable, then endearing and finally utterly compelling, as compelling as the murdered young girl who narrated Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones . … It is a tremendous achievement.’ - Scotsman

'Totally unique and intriguing. It kept us utterly hooked.' - Cosmopolitan

‘Gripping, harrowing, oddly life-affirming and imaginative… extraordinary power’ – Mirror (Book of the Week)

‘A brilliant book, moving, true, funny, desolate and unmissable.’ – Herald (Ireland)

An article I wrote ten years after Room : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/08/emma-donoghue-on-writing-room-i-toned-down-some-of-the-horror-of-the-fritzl-case

The excellent ten-page Back Bay Readers’ Picks Reading Group Guide to Room : Click here .

For an interactive floor plan and lots of other information about Room , check out www.roomthebook.com .

‘A Library for Ma and Jack,’ selection © Emma Donoghue Ltd, 2010.It was so hard choosing just ten books for Jack and Ma to have in Room that I’ve put together a sort of anthology of texts that might help them on the Outside. Click here to read more .

Here is Little, Brown’s atmospheric trailer for the novel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfpTad-lt-U

And HarperCollins Canada’s one, which was a finalist in the year’s book trailer awards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpnelG0f9A

An in-depth 40-minute audio discussion of Room by the Slate Book Club, http://www.slate.com/id/2286457/

Reading from Room at International Festival of Authors in Toronto, October 2010: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/in-other-words/podcast-emma-donoghue-reads-at-ifoa-2010/article1784074/

Interviewed by Melissa Block on NPR’s All Things Considered , 27 September 2010: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130143360

Interviewed by John Hockenberry on The Takeaway, 29 September 2010: http://www.thetakeaway.org/2010/sep/29/emma-donoghue-her-new-novel-room/

A fascinating case-study of the marketing of Room , broadcast on NPR, 10 September 2010: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129757766

In terviewed by Harriett Gilbert on BBC World Service’s The Strand, 12 August 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p008zrbp/The_Strand_The_Strand_Thursday_12th_August_2010/

Interviewed by Jenny Murray on Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4, 12 August 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t89g6/Womans_Hour_11_08_2010/

'Bringing Up Baby', Emma Donoghue in discussion with Sir Michael Rutter at a Royal Society / Royal Society of Literature event, 7 July 2013, http://royalsociety.tv/rsPlayer.aspx?presentationid=1131

Interview about development of the film of Room with Miriam O'Callaghan on The John Murray Show, September 2013

Interview with xtra tv about a queer interpretation of room , https://www.youtube.com/watchv=myqxzsgo5va, bibliography.

Viktoria Susanne Herold, '(Dis)attending to the Other: Contemporary Fictions of Empathy,' Doctoral thesis UCL 2023 https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10177466/

Ahlam Ahmed Mohamed Othman , ' Truth in Fiction is Truth Infection: A Study of Emma Donoghue’s Room , ' Studi Irlandesi 13 (July 2023)

Jockim Devaraj, 'The Power of Transition and Child's Play in Emma Donoghue's novel Room ' (February 2023) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368788504_The_Power_Of_Transition_And_Child's_Play_In_Emma_Donoghue's_Novel_Room

James Little, 'Confinement and the Transnational in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Open Library of Humanities 8 (2), 2022, Special Collection: Local and Universal in Irish Literature and Culture, https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/8774/ A brilliant exploration of the novel in the context of my whole career.

Robinson Murphy, ‘Castration Desire: Less Is More in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ College Literature 49:1 (Winter 2022), 53-79, and adapted into Chapter Six of Murphy's Castration Desire: Less Is More in Global Anglophone Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2023). An outstandingly perceptive theoretical analysis of the novel which considers Jack as a gender nonconforming, enviromentalist figure.

Virginie Buhl, ' From research-creation in translation studies to creative writing: report of a doctoral journey,' REA (Etudes sur le Monde Anglophone) , 20.1 (2022), https://journals.openedition.org/erea/15472?lang=en

María Elena Jaime de Pablos, ‘Becoming Resilient Subjects: Vulnerability and Resistance in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,’ in M.I. Romero-Ruiz and P Cuder-Domínguez, eds. Cultural Representations of Gender Vulnerability and Resistance (Palgrave, 2022), pp.33-52. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95508-3_3

Carolyn Gebauer, 'Narrative of Emancipation: Character-Centered Illusion, Cognitive Dissonance, and Narrative Unreliability in Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010),' in her Making Time: World Construction in the Present-Tense Novel (DeGruyter, 2021), 257-175.

Virginie Buhl, ‘Translating Vulnerable Voices into French: The Child Narrators in Emma Donoghue’s Room and Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English ,' Translation Studies XIV (2021), 29-45, https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1073871

S. Sreelekshmi, ' Beyond the Walls: A Meditation on Confinement and Freedom in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,' Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research , 8:1 (Jan 2021), https://www.jetir.org/view?paper=JETIR2101217

Christopher John Stephens, 'Confinement and Escape: Emma Donoghue and E. L. Doctorow in Our Time of Self-Isolation,' (2020) https://www.popmatters.com/donoghue-room-doctorow-homerlangley-2645632574.html

Eke Pernik, 'The influence of traumatic experience on a child’s identity development in Emma Donoghue’s Room' (2020), https://dspace.ut.ee/handle/10062/69926

Andrea O'Reilly, 'Redemptive Mothering: Reclamation, Absolution and Deliverance in Emma Donoghue's Room and The Wonder ,' in Writing Mothers: Narrative Acts of Care, Redemption, and Transformation , ed. BettyAnn Martin and Michelann Parr (Bradford, ON: Demeter, 2020), pp.141-66

Putti Aisyah and Hujuala Rika Ayu , 'Negotiating Motherhood in Constraining Space in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Paradigm 2 (2): 83, November 2019, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337692177_NEGOTIATING_MOTHERHOOD_IN_CONSTRAINING_SPACE_IN_EMMA_DONOGHUE'S_ROOM

Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, ' “Stories Are a Different Kind of True”: Narrative and the Space of Recovery in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,' Chapter Four of Trauma and Recovery in the Twenty-First-Century Irish Novel (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018), pp.92-109.

Ankita Das and Rajni Singh, 'Contesting Captive Spaces: A Reading of Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Journal of English Language and Literature 9:2 (April 2018), chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/83fe/179029db37d9a3dc1e7789689cadb4af2393.pdf

Ann Marie A. Short, “In This Whole Story, That’s the Shocking Detail?” Extended Breastfeeding in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,’ in Breastfeeding and Culture: Discourses and Representation , ed. Ann Marie A. Short, Abigail L. Palko and Dionne Irving (Demeter Press, 2018), 149-164.

Noémi Albert, 'Jack be nimble, Jack be quick: A curious existence in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' 2018, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/336402

Sara Martín-Ruiz (University of the Balearic Isles), ‘Emma Donoghue’s Room : Perspectives from Direct Provision’, paper delivered at conference on Irish Shame, Buffalo NY, 2018

Libe García Zarranz, ‘Corporeal Citizenship: Deviant Bodies in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ in her TransCanadian Feminist Fictions: New Crossborder Ethics (McGill-Queens, 2017). Excellent reading of Jack's oddities.

Maite Escudero-Alias, 'The Willful Child': Resignifying Vulnerability through Affective Attachments in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ in Victimhood and Vulnerability in 21st Century Fiction , 2017, 35-52.

Andrea O’Reilly, ‘ “All Those Years, I Kept Him Safe”: Maternal Practice as Redemption and Resistance in Emma Donoghue’s Room’ , in Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research & Community Involvement , 8:1-2 (Spring/Fall 2017), 89-98.

Margaret O’Neill, ‘Transformative Tales for Recessionary Times: Emma Donoghue’s Room and Marian Keyes’ The Brightest Star in the Sky ,’ in Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory , 28:1 (2017), 55-74.

Samuel Caleb Wee (Nanyang Technological University), '“…Need to Listen to Jack”: The Alterity of Childhood and Literature in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,' paper delivered at IASIL (Singapore, 2017).

Marisol Morales Ladrón, ‘Psychological Resilience in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,’ in National Identities and Imperfections in Contemporary Irish Literature: Unbecoming Irishness, ed. Luz Mar González-Árias (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp.83-98.

Margaret O'Neill, 'Transformative tales for recessionary times: Emma Donoghue's Room and Marian Keyes' The Brightest Star in the sky ,' in eds Claire Bracken and Tara Harney-Mahajan, Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland and Contemporary Women’s Writing : Feminist interventions and imaginings (special issue LIT 2017, Routledge 2021)

Kathleen Walsh, 'Mother and Father: The Dual Role of the Single Parent in Room ,' https://medium.com/ @kathleenjuliamary/mother-and-father-the-dual-role-of-the-single-parent-in-room-e36c62a26dc5

Lucia Lorenzi ‘ “Am I Not OK?": Negotiating and Re-defining Traumatic Experience in Emma Donoghue's Room ,’ Canadian Literature , No.228-29 (Spring-Summer 2016) https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA491086628&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00084360&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E8a24a0e1

Moynagh Sullivan (Maynooth University), 'Mother and Child: Subjective Time, Space, History in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' keynote delivered at ACIS (University of Miami, 2015).

Dominique Hetu, ‘Of Wonder and Encounter: Textures of Human and Nonhuman Relationality,’ in Mosaic , 48:3 (Sept 2015). Compares Room with Sous Beton by Karoline Georges.

Claudia Weber, 'Anxieties Reloaded and Fears Overcome: Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010)', in her Televisionization: Enactments of TV Experiences in Novels from 1970 to 2010 (2014), pp.161-82

Renata Brosch (University of Stuttgart), 'Coun terfocalization and Empathy: The Example of Emma Donoghue’s Room,' paper delivered at 2nd International Network Conference (Durham University, 2014)

Marco Caracciolo, 'Two child narrators: defamiliarization, empathy and reader-response in Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident and Emma Donoghue's Room ,' Semiotica , 202 (2014)

Sandra Dinter, 'Plato's Cave Revisited: Epistemology, Perception and Romantic Childhood in Emma Donoghue's Room (2010)', in C21 Literature: Journal of Twenty-First Century Writings , 2.1 (Oct 2013)

Moynagh Sullivan, 'Lactation, Lactation, Lactation: Places, Bodies and In Between in Emma Donoghue's Room ,' paper delivered at betweenbodies/bodiesbetween conference, National University of Ireland, Maynooth (2013)

Khem Raj Sharma, 'Narrative Complexity in Emma Donoghue’s Room ,' paper delivered at MELUSMELOW International Conference on Patterns of Story Telling, Panjab University, Chandigarh (2013)

Jacklyn Guay, “Blame the Mother: Jungian Analysis of the Media’s Role in Affecting Further Trauma to the Individual, as exemplified in Emma Donoghue’s Room and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin ”, paper delivered at Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference (Washington DC 2013)

Renate Brosch, Stuttgart University, ‘Narrativity and Visualisation: Narrative Beginnings as Attention’, paper delivered at International Conference on Narrative (York, 2013)

Maite Escudero-Alias, (Zaragoza, Spain), ‘Beyond Trauma Narrative: Affects and Attachment in Emma Donoghue’s Room ’, paper delivered at What Happens Now: 21 st Century Writing in English conference (University of Lincoln, 2012)

Sandra Dinter (Leibniz Hanover, Germany), ‘ “It’s like a TV planet that’s all about us”: Postromantic Childhood and Television in Emma Donoghue’s Room’, paper delivered at What Happens Now: 21 st Century Writing in English conference (University of Lincoln, 2012)

Anne Fogarty, ‘Tales o f Becoming? : Childhood and Adolescence in Contemporary Irish Fiction,’ paper delivered at ESSE-11 conference (Istanbul, 2012)

Marcela Chmelinová , ‘Emma Donoghue : Room – Translation and Analysis’ (BA thesis, University of Masaryk, 2012)

Ann-Sofie Lacroix, 'Jack, the Explorer: Analysis of the Unreliable Child Narrator and the Mother-Child Dyad in Emma Donoghue’s Room (2010)' (MA thesis, University of Leuven, 2011-12)

Ben Davies, ‘Exceptional Intercourse: sex, time and space in contemporary novels by male British and American writers’ [coda about Room ], (thesis, University of St Andrews, 2011)

Fintan O’Toole, ‘Future Fictions’, in Princeton University Library Chronicle (LXXIII), Autumn 2010, 407-18. Fascinating essay that puts Room in the context of other current Irish fiction focused on young protagonists.

‘The Q&A: Emma Donoghue’, http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2010/11/room

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/bookclub/2011/01/live-chat-with-emma-donoghue.html

‘Living Room’, Emily Landau, http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2010/10/25/living-room/#more-8609

Ron Charles, ‘The teeny, tiny world of little Jack’, Washington Post Book World , 15 September 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/09/14/ST2010091406651.html

Malcolm Jones, ‘No Exit’, Newsweek , 9 September 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/09/books-a-room-with-no-view.html

Aimee Bender, ‘Separation Anxiety’, New York Times Book Review , 19 September 2010

Nicola Barr, ‘Upstairs, Downstairs… A Child’s Chamber of Horrors’, Observer , 1 August 2010

Declan Hughes, ‘This Book Will Break Your Heart’, Irish Times , 24 July 2010

Mary Shine Thompson, ‘A Room With a View’, Irish Independent , 24 July 2010

‘The NS Books Interview: Emma Donoghue’, http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/10/fritzl-case-novel-child-room

Boyd Tonkin, ‘Room With a Panoramic View: How Emma Donoghue's Latest Novel Aims to Tell a Universal Story’, Independent , 6 August 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/room-with-a-panoramic-view-how-emma-donoghues-latest-novel-aims-to-tell-a-universal-story-2044373.html . A particularly insightful article.

‘I Knew I Wasn’t Being Voyeuristic’, interview by Sarah Crown, Guardian , 13 August 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/13/emma-donoghue-room-josef-fritzl

Emma Donoghue, ‘Finding Jack’s Voice: Some Thoughts on Children and Language’, in Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile, and Breaking the Rules , ed. Jared Bland (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2011).

Emma Donoghue, ‘The Little Voices In Our Heads That Last a Lifetime’, Irish Times , 7 August 2010

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By Aimee Bender

Sept. 16, 2010

Emma Donoghue’s remarkable new novel, “Room,” is built on two intense constraints: the limited point of view of the narrator, a 5-year-old boy named Jack; and the confines of Jack’s physical world, an 11-by-11-foot room where he lives with his mother. We enter the book strongly planted within these restrictions. We know only what Jack knows, and the drama is immediate, as is our sense of disorientation over why these characters are in this place. Jack seems happily ensconced in a routine that is deeply secure, in a setting where he can see his mother all day, at any moment. She has created a structured, lively regimen for him, including exercise, singing and reading. The main objects in the room are given capital letters — Rug, Bed, Wall — a wonderful choice, because to Jack, they are named beings. In a world where the only other companion is his mother, Bed is his friend as much as anything else. Jack, in this way, is a heightened version of a regular kid, bringing boundless wonder and meaning to his every pursuit.

Donoghue navigates beautifully around these limitations. Jack’s voice is one of the pure triumphs of the novel: in him, she has invented a child narrator who is one of the most engaging in years — his voice so pervasive I could hear him chatting away during the day when I wasn’t reading the book. Donoghue rearranges language to evoke the sweetness of a child’s learning without making him coy or overly darling; Jack is lovable simply because he is lovable. Through dialogue and smartly crafted hints of eavesdropping, Donoghue fills us in on Jack’s world without heavy hands or clunky exposition. The reader learns as Jack learns, and often we learn more than he can yet grasp, but as with most books narrated by children, the gap between his understanding and ours is a territory of emotional power.

Donoghue’s ingenuity also soars as she animates the novel’s physical space through her characters’ rituals: they run around a homemade track; watch TV, but not too much, because “it rots our brains”; string eggshells together with a needle to make a kind of snake. Toys and books are treated like gold. A lollipop is a revelation.

Although I hate to reveal plot points, some are necessary to discuss the book, and early on, the story reveals that Room is actually a prison, with a villain holding the key, and that Ma (as Jack calls his mother) is being kept against her will. Fierce claustrophobia sets in — what had seemed an odd mother-child monastery is now Rapunzel’s tower or Anne Frank’s annex or a story from the news about a stolen child living in a hidden compound. Jack, interestingly, does not feel trapped; that the two live in Room against his mother’s will is not something the son knows right away, and this contrast creates the major fissures and complexities in the book: Room is both a jail and a haven.

Once it is known that Ma doesn’t want to be there, the careful, painstakingly constructed framework of the characters’ days takes on a new tenor. That Ma can engage and interest a lively, bright boy while enduring the despair of their situation turns her into a heroic figure. When, later in the book, someone mentions how “zeitgeisty” it is, in our thing-ridden times, to make do on so little, Ma is horrified, and we are horrified, yet we are riveted by her manner of coping — in the same way we’re riveted by Anne Frank’s bravery — and amazed by her capacity for adaptation.

Jack doesn’t need to adapt; this is his norm. Room functions like a big womb, the space in many ways a true extension of a mother’s body, a limited area of total closeness and care. It is a child’s heaven for a time and, were he to grow older there, would be his nightmare. At 5, Jack is somewhat delayed developmentally, still living wholly in the unity he feels with his mother. “Maybe I’m a human,” he thinks, “but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.”

Which brings up the one part I struggled with a bit. Very early on, we see that Ma breast-feeds her son. The book opens on his birthday, and she tries, halfheartedly, to wean him, but he loves this intimate connection to his mother’s body as much as he loves all the walls and objects and routines of Room. There’s a flicker of unease in the reader here — and it’s a good and interesting flicker. Room is a sanctuary for Jack, but where are the lines, the boundaries between mother and son? When does security go too far?

Eventually the book takes a turn; I will note only that more characters enter, and that the world extends beyond its original setting. The development is thrilling and at moments palm-sweatingly harrowing. But that darker flicker of unease around the breast-feeding grows smaller. When Ma is questioned about it a couple of times, she turns on her interrogators with anger. She’s a sympathetic figure, and her choices, in her situation, are believable, even understandable, but by shaming the questioners, Donoghue also cuts off a reader who may have similar wonderings. I trusted and valued that flicker of unease, and I wanted to feel it play out more, to see Donoghue go deeper into the mucky, messy territory of growth. When Ma takes an action that ends up resolving some of these questions, I found her choice surprising, even puzzling; it just didn’t quite address this issue, which was not about the breast-feeding concretely, but more about breast-feeding as an effective symbol for that initial, primal bond between mother and child, a bond that has to evolve over time. The internal claustrophobia, the blurry and often complicated area between closeness and autonomy, is acknowledged but moved through quickly, in favor of managing the joys and terrors of the outside world.

There’s a lot to manage — the external, vivid, social world is a huge and gratifying resource here, and Jack’s eyes remake the familiar. It is invigorating, watching him learn, and the way Donoghue reveals the consequences of Room through her attention to detail is tremendous. But in a world where bed is Bed and outside is Outside, I thought anxiety might be Anxiety, and somewhat harder to resolve. Part of Jack’s appeal is that heightened kidness in him, and if his wonder is 10 times larger, so might have been the resolutions of his internal struggles and regressions.

But these are objections based on the very high standards set by the beauty of the book. On the whole, Donoghue goes the distance with “Room,” and she brings her story to a powerful close that feels exactly right. This is a truly memorable novel, one that can be read through myriad lenses — psychological, sociological, political. It presents an utterly unique way to talk about love, all the while giving us a fresh, expansive eye on the world in which we live.

By Emma Donoghue

321 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $24.99

Aimee Bender’s most recent book is “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.”

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First Published:
Sep 13, 2010, 336 pages
May 2011, 352 pages

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To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world.... Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience - and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

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.

Excerpt Room

When she spits the second time it's my go with Toothbrush, I scrub each my teeth all the way around. Ma's spit in Sink doesn't look a bit like me, mine doesn't either. I wash them away and make a vampire smile. "Argh." Ma covers her eyes. "Your teeth are so clean, they're dazzling me." Her ones are pretty rotted because she forgetted to brush them, she's sorry and she doesn't forget anymore but they're still rotted. I flat the chairs and put them beside Door against Clothes Horse. He always grumbles and says there's no room but there's plenty if he stands up really straight. I can fold up flat too but not quite as flat because of my muscles, from being alive. Door's made of shiny magic metal, he goes beep beep after nine when I'm meant to be switched off in Wardrobe. God's yellow face isn't coming in today, Ma says he's having trouble squeezing through the snow. "What snow?" "See," she says, pointing up. There's a little bit of light at Skylight's top,...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Why do you think the entire book is told in Jack’s voice? Do you think it is effective?
What are some of the ways in which Jack’s development has been stunted by growing up in Room? How has he benefited?
If you were Ma, what would you miss most about the outside world?
What would you do differently if you were Jack’s parent? Would you tell Jack about the outside world from the start?
If Ma had never given birth to Jack, what would her situation in Room be like?
What would you ask for, for Sundaytreat, if you were Jack? If you were Ma?
Describe the dynamic between Old Nick and Ma. Why does the author choose not to tell us Old Nick’s story?
What does joining the outside world do to Jack? To ...
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Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

When I finished this brilliant novel, besides being as locked into its story and world as Jack and Ma were in Room, I had no idea how I would review it. I was convinced there was nothing I could say about it without the entire review being one big spoiler. For me, what made Room so great was that I never knew from page to page what would happen next. Finding out what happens next made it one of the best thrillers I have ever read. I want every reader to experience that... By filtering [ Room's ] themes through the eyes and mind of a child, Donoghue lays on the patina of a fairy tale. She also illustrates the power of mothering and the heroism of ordinary people. These are just some of the ways we triumph over a world full of terrors... continued

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For fans of Room and the novels of Jodi Picoult, a dazzling, tenderhearted debut about healing, family, and the exquisite wisdom of children, narrated by a six-year-old boy who reminds us that sometimes the littlest bodies hold the biggest hearts, and the quietest voices speak the loudest.

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Room: A Novel Paperback – September 29, 2015

Print length 384 pages
Language English
Publisher Little, Brown and Company
Publication date September 29, 2015
Dimensions 4 x 1 x 6 inches
ISBN-10 0316268356
ISBN-13 978-0316268356
See all details

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Editorial Reviews

About the author, product details.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company; Media tie-in edition (September 29, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316268356
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316268356
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4 x 1 x 6 inches
#10,888 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
#21,143 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
#69,758 in Literary Fiction (Books)

About the author

Emma donoghue.

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the international bestseller "Room" (her screen adaptation was nominated for four Oscars), "Frog Music", "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter," "Landing," "Life Mask," "Hood," and "Stirfry." Her story collections are "Astray", "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits," "Kissing the Witch," and "Touchy Subjects." She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two children.

Customer reviews

5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 56%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 28%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 11%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 3%
5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 56% 28% 11% 3% 2% 2%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

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Customers say

Customers find the book hard to put down with decent prose and a realistic sense of the characters. They describe the story as incredible, realistic, and brilliantly disturbing. They also describe the book as truly unique, unusual, and heartbreaking. Customers also praise the narrator as incredible. Opinions are mixed on comprehensibility, entertainment value, and pace, with some finding it easy to read and engaging while others find it hard to follow and boring.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the story incredible, believable, and gripping. They also describe the events as harrowing, thoughtful, and delightful. Readers also appreciate the tremendous suspense, brilliantly disturbing, and heartbreakingly beautiful. They appreciate the author's ability to portray a very realistic sense of how Jack and his mother.

"...boy who, readers would abandon soon enough, but Jack's story, horrifying and uplifting , simple and complex, made it near impossible to turn away and..." Read more

"...The storyline is gripping being both heart warming and wrenching, along with bittersweet, traumatizing, beautiful, hopeful and cathartic...." Read more

"...one I posed to you above, and the results can be found in her brilliantly disturbing yet heartbreakingly beautiful novel ROOM...." Read more

"...A strong plot of a determined boy to save him and his mother from being held in this makeshift shed! A must read for sure!" Read more

Customers find the book easy to read. They say the prose is decent, the text is deceptive, and the book is a quick read. Readers also appreciate the consistent and believable interpretation of everything. They mention that the book deserves credit for its creativity, and say it's witty at times.

"...A brilliant work of literary art that defies its premise." Read more

"...It was a quick read and really engrossing (I don't typically get swept up with books and read them in one day.)..." Read more

"...The one issue I had with the book was that the language was more in "British" English than "American" English even though the story took place in..." Read more

"...The writing is raw , honest and absolutely different than anything I've ever read in my life...." Read more

Customers find the emotional tone haunting, powerful, and compassionate. They also say the POV of Jack means there's no sentimentality or pity. Customers also mention that the book is funny, suspenseful, disturbing, and sobering.

"... Room is emotionally powerful and pushes us to rethink how we might respond to such circumstances...." Read more

"...is gripping being both heart warming and wrenching, along with bittersweet , traumatizing, beautiful, hopeful and cathartic...." Read more

"...It was worth all of the angst and sorrow I felt for Ma and Jack...." Read more

"...it is technically stunning, and it has (for me at least) real emotional impact ...." Read more

Customers find the narrator in the book incredible, unique, and endearing. They also say the a precocious, smart, and lovable boy.

"...The mother in the book is an incredible character ...." Read more

"...The boy emerges as a vivid, and lovable, personality , and his changing perceptions are a major part of the story...." Read more

"...as a mother of two boys that age, let me tell you two things: Jack's voice is perfect , and Jack's voice will make you fall in love with him...." Read more

"...of Emma Donoghue, but based on just this novel she is a master of character development ...." Read more

Customers find the book truly unique, fascinating, and unusual. They also describe the first half of the book as original and interesting.

"...heart warming and wrenching, along with bittersweet, traumatizing, beautiful , hopeful and cathartic...." Read more

"...On the contrary, I thought it was unique , engaging, even nail-bitingly suspenseful at times...." Read more

"...As a work of literature, I'd probably recommend this book because it's unusual and well done...." Read more

"...The novel is rather unique , and manages to be so without sounding too gimmicky...." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the entertainment value of the book. Some find it engaging and nail-biting, while others find the middle boring and unfulfilling. Some readers also find the premise interesting, but the second half loses the realistic feeling.

"...I did find the middle of the book kind of boring ...." Read more

"...to parse these things out in more manageable-- and frankly, more enjoyable-- doses ...." Read more

"...beginning of the book was a little rough to get through because it was boring and nothing was..." Read more

"...But these are the highlights. Most of the book feels repetitive and predictable...." Read more

Customers find the book very difficult yet important, with sweet and endearing descriptions. They also say the transition is always believable. However, some find the voice of the child strange and confusing. They say the repetition is excrutiating and the book is difficult to get into.

"...Absolutely, but with a warning that it isn't an easy book to read , but well worth the journey." Read more

"...would abandon soon enough, but Jack's story, horrifying and uplifting, simple and complex, made it near impossible to turn away and put the book..." Read more

"...It just sounded too catchy and un-doable : a story told from the point of view of a young boy with no experience of the world other than the single..." Read more

"...All I can say is I wish I could be the mother Ma is. She demonstrates so much patience , creativity, and concern for her child in the midst of bleak..." Read more

Customers are mixed about the pace of the book. Some mention it's a very fast read and the pacing of the plot is near perfect. Others say it'd be better if the book was a little slower at the start.

"...Through this boy's eyes, the author moves the story quickly ...." Read more

"...I thought the book started off slow , with Jack's descriptions of Room, but then it picked up in the middle, only to slow down again at the end...." Read more

"...what to think at first, but once I got into the book it was a very quick read and I did enjoy it...." Read more

"...All in all, this is a very good read. It starts of slowly , but once you (like Jack) immerse yourself in Room and identify with all the personified..." Read more

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Booklover Book Reviews

A Room with a View by E M Forster, Book Review: Irreverent joy

A Room with a View by E M Forster is a satiric comedy of manners with a refreshing current of irreverence that contemporary readers will enjoy. Read on for our review and quotes from this classic novel.

A Room with a View Book Synopsis

‘You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you …’

Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance.

Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Pertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Victorian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?

‘He says, and even more implies, things that no other novelist does, and we can go on reading Forster indefinitely’ – The Times

‘I loved it. My first intimation of the possibilities of fiction’ – Zadie Smith

( Penguin Books )

Genre: Romance, Drama, Humour, Historical, Classic, Literature

Disclosure: If you click a link in this post we may earn a small commission to help offset our running costs.

BOOK REVIEW

E M Forster’s A Room with a View is a bonafide classic that has been critically reviewed by greater literary minds than I, so here I will just briefly summarise my thoughts.

I always enjoy comedies of manners and this novel certainly fits that bill. E M Forster takes great delight at making fun of his characters and there are instances where the characters even make fun of themselves.

Cecil, who naturally preferred congratulations to apologies, drew down his mouth at the corners. Was this the reception his action would get from the world? Of course, he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement. But he was sensitive to the successive particles of it which he encountered.

A refreshing current of irreverence

Many classics are heavy reads but A Room with a View has a refreshing current of irreverence and some lively characters that will appeal to a modern audience.

At the time of its publication, 1908, I expect some of the observations made about societal norms would have been quite shocking. I also quite liked how Forster addresses the reader directly on occasion, as though bringing us in on the joke.

If it has a weakness, some parts feel slightly laboured through the eyes of a contemporary reader. And, although I thoroughly enjoyed the romantic and uplifting conclusion, I guessed some of the plot twists before they occurred. But perhaps I was supposed to; perhaps the predictability of human behaviour was that the point?

Apparently, in some versions of the novel an appendix penned by Forster is included describing what happens to the characters after the book ends. My copy did not include that appendix but I found a summary on Wikipedia. Honestly, it feels like a bit of a downer after the wonderful conclusion to the novel itself. So, I recommend letting sleeping dogs lie where that is concerned.

BOOK RATING: The Story 4 / 5 ; The Writing 4 / 5

Get your copy of A Room with a View from:

Amazon Bookshop Book Depository Kobo Booktopia OR listen to the audiobook FREE with Audible’s Trial (check eligibility)

More fiction classics: Under the Net by Iris Murdoch / Lady Windemere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde / Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh / A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark / The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho / Anthem by Ayn Rand

About the Author, E M Forster

Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge. Forster wrote six novels, four of which appeared before the First World War, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Howard’s End (1910). An interval of fourteen years elapsed before he published A Passage to India . It won both the Prix Femina Vie Heuruse and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. E M Forster died in 1970. His last novel, Maurice , was published posthumously in 1971. He also published two volumes of short stories and a number of non-fiction books.

More A Room with a View Book Quotes

“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.” ― E.M. Forster, A Room With A View

“Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.” ― E.M. Forster

A booklover with diverse reading interests, who has been reviewing books and sharing her views and opinions on this website and others since 2009.

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THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM

by Marie Benedict ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2019

A captivating story of a complicated woman blazing new trails.

One of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, Hedy Lamarr also designed a secret weapon against Nazi Germany.

In her latest portrayal of a lesser-known woman scientist, Benedict ( The Other Einstein , 2016, etc.) spins the tale of Lamarr, born Hedwig Kiesler, from her late teens in Austria through her success in Hollywood. Born to Jewish parents in a posh Vienna neighborhood, Hedy endures her mother’s criticism while following her father’s encouragement to pursue both science and acting. Although she finds early success with the risqué Ecstasy , the film’s nudity haunts her efforts to be taken seriously. Just as she achieves the respect of her peers as a stage actress, Hedy catches the eye of Fritz Mandl, a wealthy, charismatic older man who owns several munitions factories. Rumored to have mistreated his former mistresses and to be in league with the fascist (albeit anti-Nazi) Austrian Christian Social Party, Fritz determines to wine, dine, and wed Hedy. Once married, however, Hedy finds herself virtually imprisoned and often abused by her jealous husband. Yet Hedy proves invaluable to Fritz when she begins to gather secret information from their well-connected, politically ambitious house guests. After all, who would suspect such a beautiful woman of understanding military secrets? Yet as Germany and Italy begin to join forces against Austria, Hedy discovers just how mercenary Fritz can be. A daring escape leads Hedy to America, where she vows never to be under another man’s thumb. Once out of Fritz’s reach, Hedy not only returns to acting, but also embarks on a new career as an inventor. Remembering the sensitive information carelessly revealed at Vienna dinner parties, she develops a brilliant radio-communication device. But will the American Navy accept such a weapon from a woman?

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4926-6686-8

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018

HISTORICAL FICTION

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BOOK REVIEW

by Marie Benedict

by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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by Kristin Hannah

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Film Productions Halted Due to Coronavirus Worry

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‘The Nightingale’ Is Reese’s Book Club Pick

SEEN & HEARD

by Roy Jacobsen ; translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2020

A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.

Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.

Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.

Pub Date: April 7, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0

Publisher: Biblioasis

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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by Roy Jacobsen ; translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw

by Roy Jacobsen translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw

by Roy Jacobsen & translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw

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Romance, Historical, Contemporary, Paranormal, Young Adult, Book reviews, industry news, and commentary from a reader's point of view

REVIEW: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

Dear Readers,

I don't know if it was Jayne's recent review of the Merchant-Ivory film adaptation of this novel, or a discussion of Forster's works that some of us on Twitter got into a while back. There's also the fact that every time I see Jennie do one of her classics reviews, I think to myself that I should reread and review this novel. Whatever the reason, the urge became irresistible after I got the book in e-form, and on a recent plane flight, I began to read the book, and fell in love with it all over again.

Mr. Emerson, an old man seated dining at the same table, suggests that Lucy and Charlotte trade rooms with him and his son, George. But rather than accepting as Lucy wants her to do, Charlotte is offended by the old man's familiar manner (she immediately concludes that he is ill-bred because he ventures to speak to her without observing her for a day or two first).

Also staying at the Bertolini are the Reverend Beebe, a clergyman who is soon to become the vicar of Summer Street, Lucy's parish; Miss Eleanor Lavish, an author of romantic novels; and two elderly sisters, Miss Catharine and Miss Teresa Alan; all of whom play a role in the novel. But Lucy, Charlotte, Mr. Emerson and his son George are the central players, and what begins as a minor contretemps about rooms with views foreshadows a greater conflict.

Following dinner, Reverend Beebe advises Charlotte that accepting the exchange of rooms would not put her under obligation to the Emersons. After Mr. Beebe leaves, one of the elderly Miss Alans approaches the newcomers. Forster's gift for dialogue is on display in the conversation that follows:

"But here you are as safe as in England; Signora Bertolini is so English.' "Yet our rooms smell,' said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed.' "Ah, then you look into the court.' She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner.' "I think he was meaning to be kind.' "Undoubtedly he was,' said Miss Bartlett. "Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of course, I was holding back on my cousin's account.' "Of course,' said the little old lady, and they murmured that one could not be too careful with a young girl. Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed it. "About old Mr. Emerson – I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time – beautiful?" "Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty and delicacy the same?'

In fact, one of the central themes of A Room with a View is the tension between beauty and delicacy, between honesty and propriety.

Eventually Charlotte Bartlett accepts the exchange of rooms, but not until she has embarrassed Lucy, Reverend Beebe, and the Emersons. Charlotte begins the novel as the personification passive aggressive martyrdom, uttering lines like "My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at Florence, when I am here only through your kindness. If you wish me to turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it."

Lucy's reaction is equally telling:

Charlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet – there was a rebellious spirit in her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less delicate and more beautiful.

One day Lucy ventures out into Florence in the company of the romantic novelist, Miss Eleanor Lavish. Miss Lavish thoughtlessly loses track of Lucy, and Lucy, abandoned without a guidebook, is grateful to run into the Emersons in the church of Santa Croce. Once again Mr. Emerson speaks bluntly, and Lucy is torn between accepting his kindness and taking offense. When they are separated from George and Mr. Emerson asks her to befriend his melancholy son, Lucy is uncomfortable and hides that discomfort by distancing herself and then taking offense when Mr. Emerson senses the truth of her emotions.

On another afternoon Lucy goes outside by herself (a daring act for a young woman at the turn of the century) and after purchasing some souvenir photographs, happens to witness an altercation between two Italians which ends in murder. She passes out and is caught in George Emerson's arms. While she recovers, George throws her photographs into the river and Lucy confronts him over that action; an embarrassed George admits that the dead man's blood was on the pictures, and he did not know what else to do with them.

Lucy thanks George for his actions and asks him not to tell anyone what happened. She cannot yet put her finger on what it is that has changed, and does not use words like "intimacy" or "connection," but she is aware that having witnessed a death at the same time has altered things between her and George. George, even more than Lucy, is conscious that something profound has happened. "I shall want to live," he tells her.

Several of the Bertolini’s guests later go on an outing to see a view, and there the beauty of the violet-studded Italian countryside, as well as their emotions, overtake George and Lucy for a brief moment and they share a kiss. Miss Bartlett separates them and later turns Lucy's mind against George, suggesting that he will gossip about Lucy and ruin her reputation. Charlotte then takes Lucy away from Florence, and the two women flee together to Rome.

The novel's second half picks up some months later in Summer Street, Surrey, in a house named Windy Corner. The house belongs to the Honeychurch family. Lucy's father, a solicitor, built it and established his family in "the best society obtainable" before he passed away.

Now it appears that Lucy has gained entry to an even better society – that of Cecil Vyse, who has just asked for, and been granted, Lucy's hand in marriage. A good sense of Cecil's character can be gleaned from this exchange between Cecil and Reverend Beebe:

"Let me see, Mr Vyse – I forget – what is your profession?' "I have no profession,' said Cecil. "It is another example of my decadence. My attitude – quite an indefensible one – is that so long as I am no trouble to anyone I have a right to do as I like. I know I ought to be getting money out of people, or devoting myself to things I don't care a straw about, but somehow I've not been able to begin.'

Cecil sees Lucy as a work of art, something to be protected, rather than as a full equal. At heart he is a snob, but one who does not realize that is what he is, and who in fact, wants to teach others to be less snobbish. Thus it is that when a villa in Summer Street becomes vacant and Lucy writes to the Miss Alans suggesting they apply to lease it, Cecil, to get the better of the class-conscious landlord, suggests that friends of his would be more suitable. The so-called "friends" are two lower middle class men with whom Cecil has only a passing acquaintance – Mr. Emerson and his son George Emerson.

Lucy is infuriated by Cecil's undermining her kindness to the Miss Alans, but more than that, she is frightened by George's arrival in Summer Street. On the surface she is afraid that George will spread rumors that will destroy her engagement, but beneath the surface fear is a deeper one, for Lucy has lied to herself about her feelings for Cecil and her feelings for George, and she does not want to examine the truth of her emotions. The situation is further complicated by a visit from Cousin Charlotte and a scene in a romantic novel.

Will Lucy be able to see the truth of her feelings for Cecil and her love for George before it is too late? What will honesty with herself and with others cost her and how much will they gain her?

A Room with a View is not perfect – Bradbury points out, and I agree with him, that George isn't that well-defined a character – but there is so much I could say about the book and the reasons I love it.

There are the social critiques of snobbery and the class system and of propriety and repression.

There is Forster's humor, which ranges from witty satire, such as this:

"He is nice,' exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see the good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman.'

To gentle irony, as in this description of the elderly Miss Alan's troubles:

It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.

There is the beauty of Forster's descriptions, as in this passage:

Evening approached while they chatted; the air became brighter; the colours on the trees and hills were purified, and the Arno lost its muddy solidity and began to twinkle. There were a few streaks of bluish-green among the clouds, a few patches of watery light upon the earth, and then the dripping facade of San Miniato shone brilliantly in the declining sun.

There are the touches of philosophy, as in this bit from George:

"We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm – yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.'

There are the acutely observed characters which feel so real. Many of them, true to Forster's own definition of round characters in his nonfiction work, Aspects of the Novel , surprise the reader in convincing ways. Of these, Lucy is quite possibly the most fully fleshed, so much so that even when she lies to herself and to those around her, I find myself sympathizing with her instead of condemning her. Among many things, A Room with a View is a coming of age story about Lucy's entry into adulthood.

Above all, perhaps, there is Forster's humane way of seeing the people he breathes life into. Even Cecil proves capable of rising, momentarily at least, above his priggishness. One senses compassion and kind wishes for the characters from the novel's omniscient narrator, even while that same narrator observes their flaws and weaknesses. I am in awe of Forster's ability to clearly observe, gently forgive, and passionately love, all at the same time.

The next to last chapter, "Lying to Mr. Emerson," makes for a soaring, triumphant climax to the novel. The elderly Mr. Emerson's speech to Lucy is one of the most moving and romantic meditations on love I have read, so I won't spoil it for readers.

We all need the room to express our personal truths, the openness and freedom to love that views represent in this novel. The values of self-knowledge over self-denial, of clear communication over muddled thinking, of the love and light that we can only express if we are true to ourselves, are at the center of A Room with a View , part and parcel of what makes the book an enduring classic.

In response to Mr. Emerson's speech, Lucy later thinks that "he had shown her the holiness of direct desire," and I think that is also what the author has done for this reader. A+.

Janine Ballard

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Jen Ryland Reviews

Find books. Read books. Talk books.

Review of The Vacancy in Room 10 with Spoilers

03.19.2024 by Jen Ryland // Leave a Comment

I love when a book starts off with some mild suspense and then – bam! – suddenly kicks into high gear and straight into thriller territory. My Review of The Vacancy in Room 10 with Spoilers (protected) explains why I think this book is a Great Slow Burn Thriller .

Jen’s Quick Take on The Vacancy in Room 10

REview of The Vacancy in Room 10 with spoilers. Original photo of The Vacancy in Room 10 on a bookshelf next to other brightly colored thrillers.

Dual narration by two women whose paths intersect at a rundown motel
Slow suspense set-up for the first 40%
Kicks into high-stakes thriller territory after that point
Clever connections between the storylines
Two reveals, one of which I guessed!
Great pick for readers who can be patient for a good payoff

The Vacancy in Room 10 by Seraphina Nova Glass

To be published on April 9 2024 by Grayson House. Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance review copy.

I put The Vacancy in Room 10 on my List of Most Anticipated Mysteries and Thrillers of 2024 . I also really enjoyed the author’s two prior books, On a Quiet Street , which I added to my list of Neighborhood Thrillers , and The Vanishing Hour .

Jen’s Review of The Vacancy in Room 10

The vacancy in room 10 is a dual narration book, with the story told alternately by anna and cass..

Anna’s husband called her and told her he did something terrible. Then the police found his body washed up on the banks of the Rio Grande.

Desperate for answers, Anna moves into The Sycamores, the seedy motel turned apartment complex where Henry rented a room as his art studio. She’s side-eyeing and questioning all the residents, trying to figure out what Henry was involved in before his death.

Cass, the other narrator, was once a trophy girlfriend living a life of ease . Then she got unceremoniously dumped and replaced by a younger woman. Now Cass has stooped to minor blackmail schemes in-between plunging toilets at the Sycamores, where she works as the resident manager. She’s incredibly bitter about the life she lost, and feels like she might do anything to get it back.

For a good 40%, The Vacancy in Room 10 carefully sets the scene at the Sycamores, alternating between Anna’s investigating her husband and Cass obsessively Instagram-stalking her ex and his new girlfriend.

At this point I was messaging the person I was buddy reading with, saying the book was a little slow. (She did not agree.)

Suddenly, whoa! The story kicked into high gear

Henry’s secrets started to unravel and Cass’s anger got her way over her head into BIG danger.

Suddenly, I’m reading a thriller! Let’s go!! At that point I was obsessed. I had my theories about what was happening and how everything was connected.

What I also liked about The Vacancy in Room 10 was that it’s a book with a lot of suspense but also a great sense of humanity and fun . There’s a hilarious scene when the “pool girls” who socialize around the Sycamore swimming pool convince Cass to take them to a fancy gala, where Cass runs into her ex and makes a huge commotion.

I really enjoyed The Vacancy in Room 10 and hope that if you try it, you’ll let me know what you think!

To protect readers who HATE being spoiled you will need to log in with your email or social media account. By doing so, you will be added to my email list and receive awesome weekly updates about new books! For more information on why I protect my spoilers, please read this post! If you are having any issues PLEASE leave a comment as I want to help!

Spoilers for the Ending of the Vacancy in Room 10

Things really kicked off when one of Cass’s blackmail schemes goes south. She has filmed Eddie, a tenant, physically abusing his wife, Rosa. Eddie tries to strangle Cass, she stabs him with scissors, and he ends up dead.

Cass gets fellow tenant Callum to help her dispose of the body. But then (and I HATE anonymous notes usually) she receives a very detailed anonymous note warning her that the place they disposed of the bodies is about to be developed. Cass moves Eddie’s body, dumping it down a well.

Meanwhile, Anna gets some shocking news, times two. The police tell her Henry was murdered. She also discovers that her late husband, Henry, was in love with another woman. She becomes obsessed with figuring out who it is.

The Twists in The Vacancy in Room 10

First off, the person Henry was in love with was none other than Lily , the late wife of Callum, who lost her life to cancer.

Then, the person leaving the notes was none other than Rosa, who wasn’t that upset that Eddie is out of her life. And had put GPS tracker on Cass’s car.

Henry left a video saying that Callum gave Lily a drug overdose to get her life insurance money. Henry intended to go to the police, but Callum got to him first.

Callum kidnaps Anna , but Rosa and Cass are able to save her. Callum escapes.

Rosa and Cass then frame Callum for Eddie’s murder. Rosa and Cass stay at the Sycamores, while Anna goes to Ibiza (random!) and writes up the whole story.

Did you read this? Do you have questions? Talk to me in comments and spoilers are fine!

About Jen Ryland

Over 12 years of book blogging and reviewing, I have read over 1500 books. A fair and honest reviewer who loves book discussions, I'm here to help you find a book you'll love to read AND give you a place to talk about it and ask questions. Find me on Instagram and Pinterest as @jenryland!

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Review: THE ROOM ON RUE AMELIE

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Kristin Harmel’s The Room on Rue Amelie takes place in Nazi-occupied Paris in WWII and follows the lives of three people whose lives unexpectedly cross paths during the course of the war: Ruby Benoit, an American woman living in Paris, Charlotte Dacher, a Jewish teen who lives next door to Ruby, and Thomas Clark, a British RAF pilot who is flying missions over France.

As the novel opens, Ruby meets and marries the man of her dreams, Marcel, a handsome Frenchman. She and Marcel move to Paris and Ruby dreams of walking hand in hand in the most romantic city in the world. Her dreams are soon shattered, however, as the Nazis invade France and everything changes, including Marcel, who becomes secretive and who also disappears for days at a time, only to come back and refuse to tell Ruby where he has been or what he is up to. The tension and the secrecy begin to take a toll on their marriage. When Marcel is unexpectedly killed, Ruby discovers what he has been so secretive about. Her discovery is life-changing…

Next door to Ruby and Marcel live Charlotte Dacher and her family, who are Jewish. They have been hearing rumors about what the Nazis are doing to Jews throughout Eastern Europe. Sure enough, as soon as the Nazis enter Paris, they begin imposing restrictions on the Jewish people, forcing them out of work and also requiring them to sew yellow stars on all of their clothing. Soon after, Charlotte and her family realize that all of the rumors they’ve been hearing about Hitler and the Nazis are true, as mass deportations begin and their lives are torn apart.

Thomas Clark is a British Royal Air Force Pilot. He has joined the RAF because he wants to protect England from Hitler and the Nazis but when his mother is killed in the Blitz, Thomas begins to doubt that anything he is doing is making a difference and questions whether it’s worth it to keep fighting. That is, until he meets Ruby and Charlotte. The unexpected connection he makes with them reignites his will to fight and he’s more motivated than ever to defeat the Nazis.

The Room on Rue Amelie is a riveting story about resistance, courage, and defiance in the face of seemingly impossible odds, and it’s also a moving story about love, fate, family, and the sacrifices we’re willing to make for those we love.

I was drawn to The Room on Rue Amelie primarily because the synopsis indicates it would be a great read for fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Martha Hall Kelly’s The Lilac Girls and in many respects, I was not disappointed with the comparison.

My favorite part of The Room on Rue Amelie was its focus on all of the regular citizens of Paris and surrounding areas and the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that they defied Hitler and the Nazis. The spirit of those people were what really made the book for me, especially those who worked on the “Escape Line” that is featured prominently throughout the novel. The purpose of the Escape Line was to locate downed Allied pilots before the Nazis could get them and then provide them safe passage over the mountains and into Spain where they could then be sent back to rejoin their units and continue the fight against Hitler. In many ways the Escape Line reminded me of the Underground Railroad with its many stops at different safe houses along the way and I just found it so inspiring that so many citizens were willing to risk their lives to work as part of the Resistance.

In addition to that, I also really loved the characters of Ruby and Charlotte. They are fiercely, independent women who want to do their part to fight Hitler in any way they can, even though all of the men they encounter want to push them aside and tell them it’s too dangerous and that it’s man’s work. I was especially drawn to Charlotte since, as a Jew, she was taking even more of a risk than Ruby was by putting herself out there. I also loved how close Ruby and Charlotte became as the novel progressed. They go from being mere neighbors to practically being like sisters, and their bond is wonderful to watch, especially since it contrasted so much with all of the tumult and danger that surrounded them.

The way Harmel structured the novel also appealed to me. It’s told in alternating chapters from the viewpoints of Ruby, Charlotte, and Thomas so it allows us to watch the war progress from three very different perspectives, which I thought really gave the story a lot of depth.

As much I enjoyed the story overall, I still had a few issues with it. The first is that it was more focused on romance than I expected it to be based on the comparisons in the synopsis to The Nightingale and The Lilac Girls , which don’t really rely on romance at all. There were a few times while I was reading when it felt like the events of WWII served merely as a backdrop to Ruby and Thomas’s thoughts about each other. Along similar lines, I was disappointed in the character development of Thomas. At first I enjoyed following the story from his perspective as he joined the British Royal Air Force, hoping to do his part to defeat the Nazis. It was interesting following along through his training and as he began to fly missions in the war. I thought Harmel did a wonderful job of showing all the conflicting emotions Thomas was feeling while in the sky shooting down other men, and then especially after his mother is killed during the Blitz, when he begins to doubt that his efforts are even making a difference in the war.

But then he just fell sort of flat for me. Once he meets Ruby, it seems like she’s all he ever thinks about. He only thinks about the events of the war in terms of how they can get him back to her. If he gets shot down again, it’s a way back to her. If he doesn’t go back and fight this time, he can stay with her, etc. It was a little disappointing how one-track minded he became, especially since it was insta-love between he and Ruby in the first place, which was my final issue with the story. I guess I just don’t believe in love at first sight because I was not at all sold on the idea that such an all-consuming romance could convincingly take place between two people who interacted for only a few days before parting company.

Even though I had a few issues with The Room on Rue Amelie , I’m still glad I read it because I very much enjoyed reading about the pockets of resistance throughout France and how big of an impact that they had on the war. Based on its focus on the relationship between Thomas and Ruby, however, I’m not sure I was really the ideal audience for this book. I think fans of romance would easily find this a 4 or 5 star book.

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS: For fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Martha Hall Kelly’s Lilac Girls, this powerful novel of fate, resistance, and family—by the international bestselling author of The Sweetness of Forgetting and When We Meet Again —tells the tale of an American woman, a British RAF pilot, and a young Jewish teenager whose lives intersect in occupied Paris during the tumultuous days of World War II. When newlywed Ruby Henderson Benoit arrives in Paris in 1939 with her French husband Marcel, she imagines strolling arm in arm along the grand boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light. But war is looming on the horizon, and as France falls to the Nazis, her marriage begins to splinter, too. Charlotte Dacher is eleven when the Germans roll into the French capital, their sinister swastika flags snapping in the breeze. After the Jewish restrictions take effect and Jews are ordered to wear the yellow star, Charlotte can’t imagine things getting much worse. But then the mass deportations begin, and her life is ripped forever apart. Thomas Clarke joins the British Royal Air Force to protect his country, but when his beloved mother dies in a German bombing during the waning days of the Blitz, he wonders if he’s really making a difference. Then he finds himself in Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and he discovers a new reason to keep fighting—and an unexpected road home. When fate brings them together, Ruby, Charlotte, and Thomas must summon the courage to defy the Nazis—and to open their own broken hearts—as they fight to survive. Rich with historical drama and emotional depth, this is an unforgettable story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned.

About Kristin Harmel

Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names, The Winemaker’s Wife, and a dozen other novels that have been translated into twenty-nine languages and are sold all over the world.

A former reporter for PEOPLE magazine, Kristin has been writing professionally since the age of 16, when she began her career as a sportswriter, covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey for a local magazine in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late 1990s. After stints covering health and lifestyle for American Baby, Men’s Health, and Woman’s Day, she became a reporter for PEOPLE magazine while still in college and spent more than a decade working for the publication, covering everything from the Super Bowl to high-profile murders to celebrity interviews. Her favorite stories at PEOPLE, however, were the “Heroes Among Us” features—tales of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

In addition to a long magazine writing career (which also included articles published in Travel + Leisure, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, Every Day with Rachael Ray, and more), Kristin was also a frequent contributor to the national television morning show The Daily Buzz and has appeared on Good Morning America and numerous local television morning shows.

Kristin was born just outside Boston, Massachusetts and spent her childhood there, as well as in Columbus, Ohio, and St. Petersburg, Florida. After graduating with a degree in journalism (with a minor in Spanish) from the University of Florida, she spent time living in Paris and Los Angeles and now lives in Orlando, with her husband and young son. She is also the co-founder and co-host of the weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction.

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Book Review: ‘Kent State’ a chilling examination of 1970 campus shooting and its ramifications

This book cover image released by Norton shows “Kent State: An American Tragedy” by Brian VanDeMark. (Norton via AP)

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More than a half century has passed since Ohio National Guard members opened fire on college students during a war protest at Kent State University , killing four students and injuring nine others.

The description of the nation, then split over the Vietnam War, leading up to the 1970 tragedy echo today’s politics and divisions in many ways. In “Kent State: An American Tragedy,” historian Brian VanDeMark recounts a country that had split into two warring camps that would not and could not understand each other.

“It was a tense, suspicious, and combustible atmosphere that required only a spark to ignite a tragedy,” VanDeMark writes.

VanDeMark succeeds at helping readers understand that atmosphere, creating a chilling narrative of the spark and ensuing tragedy at Kent State. Within less than 13 seconds, 30 guardsmen fired 67 shots at protesters in an event where “the Vietnam War came home and the Sixties came to an end,” he writes.

With a straightforward writing style, VanDeMark provides both a micro and macro look at the events leading up to the massacre — examining the growing dissent against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and how it rippled across Kent State’s campus.

VanDeMark relies on a host of new material, including interviews with some of the guardsmen, to reconstruct the protests on campus and the shooting. He also recounts the investigations and legal fights that ensued following the shooting.

“Kent State” portrays a campus that grappled for years with its legacy, with no official memorial to the slain students erected on campus until two decades later, in 1990. A new visitors center devoted to the shooting that opened in 2012 suggested an emerging consensus about the tragedy, writes VanDeMark, whose work may contribute to that consensus as well.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

I've flown on the only 2 all-business-class airlines in the world. It's like flying on a private jet — but less expensive.

La Compagnie and Beond are the only two airlines that fly solely business-class Airbus planes.
The model is historically unsuccessful, but the airlines are banking on high-demand niche markets.
I think both are splurge-worthy for people who want a bougie-but-affordable travel experience.

All-business-class carriers are among the rarest airlines in operation — and that's because the business model historically doesn't work.

British Airways, BermudAir, Qatar Airways, and Singapore Airlines all previously tried these premium-focused planes , only to later ditch the system. The airlines cited challenges like high costs, fluctuating demand , and tough competition.

But the model hasn't died out yet . Two all-business-class airlines are in operation: France's La Compagnie and the Maldives-based Beond .

I've flown on both carriers, flying on La Compagnie from Paris to New Jersey in 2022 and then on Beond from Milan to Malé, the Maldives, in July 2023.

There were a few key differences, but I found both to be great alternatives to mainline competitors — and about as close as you can get to flying private with a commercial ticket.

Beond and La Compagnie have the same concept but fly in different markets.

While Beond is less than a year old , La Compagnie has been flying for a decade. Both operate Airbus narrowbody planes on long-haul flights to hot-spot destinations. Despite the age gap, they fly similarly limited routes.

Beond flies from Malé to Zurich, Munich, Milan, Dubai and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The airline also has a fifth-freedom route between Zurich and Dubai.

La Compagnie connects New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport to Milan, Paris, and Nice, France.

Both companies have room for expansion, with Beond having said it hopes to eventually expand to places like Bangkok, Tokyo, and Perth, Australia.

Both companies market their brands as "premium leisure" with affordable fares.

Both airlines are attracting customers with round-trip business-class tickets that are cheaper than mainline competitors.

La Compagnie's ticket prices start at $2,400, while Beond's are about $2,000. Both have fare tiers that offer various perks, like lounge access and extra luggage.

A round-trip flight from Milan to Malé in mid September costs $1,900 on Beond. The same round-trip itinerary in business class on Qatar's and Emirates' websites is about $3,000 and $3,200, respectively, which includes layovers in Doha on Qatar and Dubai on Emirates.

A round-trip flight on La Compagnie between Newark and Paris for next month is about $3,500. The cheapest nonstop business-class route on Delta Air Lines between Kennedy Airport in New York and Paris Charles de Gaulle is about $4,500.

Each operates a tiny fleet of planes. La Compagnie's is more efficient.

Beond launched with a single 44-seater Airbus A319 that is 21 years old. The airline is actively retrofitting a second plane, this one a 22-year-old previous-generation Airbus A321-200, with 68 lie-flat seats, which is expected to enter service soon.

La Compagnie's fleet consists of two 76-seater next-generation Airbus A321neos that are just five years old. The airline said these aircrafts burn 30% less fuel than its previous Boeing 757 planes.

Beond can't fly every route nonstop.

La Compagnie's Airbus A321neos can easily make the transatlantic hop between the East Coast and Europe.

Beond's Airbus A319 has to stop for fuel at Al Maktoum International Airport, or Dubai World Central , between Europe and the Maldives. For my flight to and from Milan, passengers could stay on board for the hourlong stop while the plane was fueled, restocked, and recrewed.

I didn't mind the stop as it was more convenient than the layover that's typically required between Mal é and most European cities. There was no disembarking and traversing crowded terminals and no risk of missing a connecting flight because of a delay.

Each jet is branded in its airline's respective colors and equipped with lie-flat seats.

Beond and La Compagnie have both configured their planes with lie-flat seats in a 2-by-2 layout.

The downside is that passengers can't freely access the aisle when the seat's in bed mode without disturbing their neighbor.

I found that because the airlines are targeting leisure customers, most people on board are couples or families, making the chances of two solo people being next to each other low.

Seats have all the business-class basics, including a bed, storage, and power outlets.

There was little difference in the basics. I'm 5-foot-3 and easily fit in the beds, though most seats had small footwells that made sleeping on my stomach difficult.

Sleeping on my side or back was easy, though. Taller travelers on La Compagnie may want to book an exit-row seat for more legroom.

Both airlines lacked storage, with only a few small nooks and slots for things like extra clothes or electronics.

Passengers can book an ottoman seat for extra room on Beond.

There are eight special seats on Beond, four each in the first and exit rows. These have an ottoman that can double as a companion seat and a larger footwell for the bed.

La Compagnie offers extra-legroom seats but doesn't have the ottoman perk.

The airlines provide good linens and amenity kits.

Both companies provided blankets, an eyemask, a mattress cover, and pillows for sleeping. There were also dental kits and other toiletries for freshening up.

Beond's blanket was the softest I'd ever used on a plane, but the pillow on La Compagnie was more plush.

La Compagnie offers a key perk that Beond doesn't: a seatback screen.

Most business classes have seatback screens with an accompanying remote, and La Compagnie was no different.

Beond, on the other hand, provided an iPad loaded with content that could be propped on a tablet holder in front of the seat. The table was connected to noise-canceling Beats, which was the best set of headphones I've ever had in business class.

Unpopular opinion: I preferred Beond's version.

I've raved that the tablet holder on American Airlines is perfect for my travel preference of catching up on reality TV, and it's the same case with Beond.

I came prepared for my flight with my Kindle tablet. It fit perfectly in the little holder, and I could even connect it to the provided headphones.

Beond lacks a middle divider, a headrest, and WiFi.

While I preferred Beond's in-flight-entertainment setup, I thought La Compagnie's seat was more comfortable because of the headrest and it was a little more private.

The middle divider provides more privacy when solo travelers get stuck next to a stranger. Beond's planes lacked this, but I still found that passengers were largely hidden away when sleeping.

There was no internet on Beond, while La Compagnie's was fast and free. Beond targerts leisure customers, so I understand it may not be a priority, but adding WiFi would make it more competitive .

Beond's technology is behind.

Beond launched in November and doesn't yet have an online-check-in system, so I had to visit the ticket counter before each flight to get my boarding pass.

La Compagnie let me get my boarding pass online so I could go straight to security. I suspect the check-in efficiency is on Beond's to-do list, but for now, manual it is.

La Compagnie has a gastronomy focus.

Part of La Compagnie's business model is partnering with Michelin-rated chefs to produce high-quality meals. I had two meals on La Compagnie, including the larger main meal and a smaller second one, where I could choose pastries or a tomato sandwich.

The main meal was the star, consisting of a cheese platter, a salmon-salad appetizer, a scallop entrée topped with truffles, pastries, and an apple tart.

All the meals were incredible , and it was easy to see how food-focused the airline was.

Beond's dining was delicious, too. There was a lot to enjoy because of the long flights.

Because of the fuel stop, my Milan-Malé itinerary included four legs. I got one large meal on each, which meant I got to enjoy four nice selections of bread, appetizers, main courses, and desserts.

The company catered lobster tail on one of the flights, which was one of the best dishes I've ever had on a plane. Everything from chicken, cold cuts, and pasta to seafood, fruit, and brisket was also available.

Minus the goose-liver pâté, which I think is an acquired taste, I enjoyed every bite of food on Beond.

After flying on both airlines, I find it's like sharing a private jet.

Unlike a typical commercial plane that's split into first/business class and economy, everyone flying Beond and La Compagnie gets a bed and delicious food for a few thousand dollars. And the fewer seats on the planes mean check-in is quick, without any " gate lice " while boarding or traffic jams while deplaning.

Passengers won't get the truly private perk of bypassing security . But both airlines' lounge access for most fares and fast-track security and passport control at participating airports make the experience less stressful overall.

If you have a flexible budget and are eyeing a destination served by Beond or La Compagnie, I think it's worth splurging for the unique flying experience. And it could be cheaper and more convenient than a competitor — especially if it negates a layover.

I'm not convinced this business model can survive.

Mainline carriers are better equipped to respond to cost and demand changes because they can strategically price their economy and first/business cabins to offset dips in one or the other.

While my concerns about this business model apply to both airlines, I think Beond is in a tougher position since it's brand-new and operates in a seasonal market at a time when operating prices are more expensive than ever .

La Compagnie recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and reported its first profitable year in 2022.

La Compagnie also makes money via cargo operations and chartering a jet for luxury tourism. Beond has announced similar plans to rent out its Airbus fleet.

You also don't get the same protections offered by a mainline carrier.

La Compagnie and Beond don't operate their flights every day , meaning there's less flexibility. There are few options if a maintenance issue takes either airline's tiny fleet out of service.

La Compagnie has partnered with the low-cost airline easyJet for connections to places like Rome and Geneva. Beond doesn't partner with other airlines at this point.

The new Airbus A321XLR could open new opportunities for both carriers.

La Compagnie CEO Christian Vernet said in 2021 that the Airbus A321XLR, expected to start flying this year, would be a "good fit" for the carrier.

"That aircraft is going to be a bit better as far as performance is concerned, in terms of range, because it has more fuel, and it is supposed to be a bit lighter than the classic LR," he said.

Beond is also eyeing the jet. Company CEO Tero Taskila told Aerotime Hub in May that most of the 32 planes that Beond hopes to fly by 2035 will be longer-ranged A321neoLRs and A321XLRs , which would eliminate the fuel stop and open new markets.

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Room by Emma Donoghue
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 ...
The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis
George Stephanopoulos, former senior advisor to President Clinton and for more than 20 years anchor of This Week and co-anchor of Good Morning America , recounts the crises that decided the course of history, from the place 12 presidents made their highest-pressure the White House Situation Room. No room better defines American power and its ...
Room (novel)
Room is a 2010 novel by Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue.The story is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. [1] Donoghue conceived the story after hearing about five-year-old Felix in the Fritzl case. [2]The novel was longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize [3] and won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize ...
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
A Room with a View, E.M. Forster A Room with a View is a 1908 novel, by British writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman, in the restrained culture of Edwardian era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society, at the beginning of the 20th century.
ROOM
A haunting final scene doesn't promise quick cures, but shows Jack and Ma putting the past behind them. Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching and at times unexpectedly funny. 4. Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2010. ISBN: 978--316-09833-5.
Room by Emma Donoghue
Room was Amazon.ca and Indigo's Best Book (as well as a Heather's Pick) of 2010, fiction winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards, Top Pick of the Channel 4 TV Book Club, and also chosen by the Richard & Judy Book Club. Room was chosen as one of twenty-five titles to be given away by tens of thousands on World Book Night UK 2012.
Book Review
Separation Anxiety. Emma Donoghue's remarkable new novel, "Room," is built on two intense constraints: the limited point of view of the narrator, a 5-year-old boy named Jack; and the ...
Room by Emma Donoghue: Summary and reviews
Book Summary. To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world.... Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience - and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible. To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives ...
Book Review: Room by Emma Donoghue
Emma Donoghue's novel 'Room', shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. This book offers an incredibly insightful vision with a mastered point of view; never before has a modern literary classic captured the innocence, creativity and resilience of a child so well. Questions of education, the continuation of childhood and the confronting ...
Amazon.com: Room: A Novel: 9780316268356: Donoghue, Emma: Books
Room: A Novel. Paperback - September 29, 2015. Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time. To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. . . . It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn.
How do I write, edit or delete a book review on Goodreads?
2. Next to the book's cover image, tap Write a review. 3. Enter your review on the following page, and tap Post. You cannot edit or remove reviews from mobile web. From iOS app: 1. Navigate to the book page of the book you'd like to review. 2. Tap the stars to give the book a star rating; this will automatically move the book to your Read shelf.
A Room with a View by E M Forster, Book Review: Irreverent joy
About the Author, E M Forster. Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879. He studied at King's College, Cambridge. Forster wrote six novels, four of which appeared before the First World War, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Howard's End (1910). An interval of fourteen years elapsed before he published A Passage to India.
THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM
This is a low point for Hunter's writing; elsewhere in the novel, it's stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century's worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition.
Goodreads
Frank Zappa. "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.". Albert Einstein. "A room without books is like a body without a soul.". Marcus Tullius Cicero. "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.".
REVIEW: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
In fact, one of the central themes of A Room with a View is the tension between beauty and delicacy, between honesty and propriety. Eventually Charlotte Bartlett accepts the exchange of rooms, but not until she has embarrassed Lucy, Reverend Beebe, and the Emersons. Charlotte begins the novel as the personification passive aggressive martyrdom ...
Book Review: The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction by mmelland. The Only Woman in the Room is an historical fiction novel about the legendary actress, Hedy Lamarr, who was much more than a beautiful face - she also invented a torpedo guidance system. Lamarr's story is fascinating, but I'm not quite sure this novel did it complete justice.
Review of The Vacancy in Room 10 with Spoilers
The Vacancy in Room 10 by Seraphina Nova Glass. To be published on April 9 2024 by Grayson House. Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance review copy. I put The Vacancy in Room 10 on my List of Most Anticipated Mysteries and Thrillers of 2024.I also really enjoyed the author's two prior books, On a Quiet Street, which I added to my list of Neighborhood Thrillers, and The Vanishing Hour.
Book review: The Only Woman in the Room
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict Sourcebooks 1/8/2019 Genre: Historical Fiction 272 pages Goodreads *** I discovered Marie Benedict at BEA when it was set in Chicago a few years ago, and really enjoyed The Other Einstein, as well as Carnegie's Maid.So I just decided to read The Only Woman in the Room, without knowing anything about her subject.
The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz
Packed with Andrea Bartz's signature tension, twists, and toxic relationships, The Spare Room marks an edgy, boundary-pushing new direction from the "master of the 'feminist thriller'" (Los Angeles Times). Show more. Genres Thriller MysteryFictionMystery ThrillerAudiobookAdultSuspense. ...more. 336 pages, Hardcover. First published ...
Review: THE ROOM ON RUE AMELIE
The Room on Rue Amélie by Kristin Harmel Also by this author: The Forest of Vanishing Stars Published by Gallery Books on March 27th 2018 Genres: Historical Fiction Pages: 400 Source: Netgalley Amazon Goodreads. FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own. MY REVIEW: Kristin Harmel's The Room on Rue Amelie takes ...
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More than a half century has passed since Ohio National Guard members opened fire on college students during a war protest at Kent State University, killing four students and injuring nine others.. The description of the nation, then split over the Vietnam War, leading up to the 1970 tragedy echo today's politics and divisions in many ways.
The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings
War-time Japes The Enormous Room, the fictionalised account of Cummings's arrest and incarceration by the French on charges of sedition during WWI, reads like a Billy Bunter story.The protagonist is obnoxious and endearing in about equal measure. The various French authorities (and for that matter American, Cummings accommodates everyone), from the snobbish regional police chief to his ...
Review: Flying on All-Business-Class Airlines La Companie and Beond
Taller travelers on La Compagnie may want to book an exit-row seat for more legroom. Both airlines lacked storage, with only a few small nooks and slots for things like extra clothes or electronics.
The Vacancy in Room 10 by Seraphina Nova Glass
Thank you to Seraphina Nova Glass, Graydon House Books, NetGalley, and Thriller Book Lovers Promotions for my complimentary copy. It was an honor to be included in this exclusive early pre-release tour. All opinions are my own. PUB DATE: April 9, 2024 👉 Be sure to head to my Amazon Storefront to order. I get a small commission and would love ...
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Interview about development of the film of Room with Miriam O'Callaghan on The John Murray Show, September 2013

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Book Review: ‘Kent State’ a chilling examination of 1970 campus shooting and its ramifications

I've flown on the only 2 all-business-class airlines in the world. It's like flying on a private jet — but less expensive.

Beond and La Compagnie have the same concept but fly in different markets.

Both companies market their brands as "premium leisure" with affordable fares.

Each operates a tiny fleet of planes. La Compagnie's is more efficient.

Beond can't fly every route nonstop.

Each jet is branded in its airline's respective colors and equipped with lie-flat seats.

Seats have all the business-class basics, including a bed, storage, and power outlets.

Passengers can book an ottoman seat for extra room on Beond.

The airlines provide good linens and amenity kits.

La Compagnie offers a key perk that Beond doesn't: a seatback screen.

Unpopular opinion: I preferred Beond's version.

Beond lacks a middle divider, a headrest, and WiFi.

Beond's technology is behind.

La Compagnie has a gastronomy focus.

Beond's dining was delicious, too. There was a lot to enjoy because of the long flights.

After flying on both airlines, I find it's like sharing a private jet.

I'm not convinced this business model can survive.

You also don't get the same protections offered by a mainline carrier.

The new Airbus A321XLR could open new opportunities for both carriers.

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