Final Exam

Blog Post- Final Exam

Book 4

Emma Simendinger

In “The Room” by Emma Donoghue, it’s the story a young boy and his Ma, living behind the walls of “Room.” Never coming out and revealing Ma’s real name, she was kidnapped at age 19 and forced to live in a small shed, till twenty-seven years old. Jack, Ma’s son is the narrator of the story, it all being seen through a five year old’s eyes. The innocence of Jack and thinking everything good about room, or for him even seeing Old Nick as being the good guy who cares for them, not as the guy who stole Ma. To Jack, the only things in room that are real is room itself and everything in room. So trees, toys, stores are all fake in his mind.  Although it being a fictional story, it’s a realistic story of something that could happen or in this case a similar story that actually has happened. In the nonfiction piece, a memoir by Jaycee Dugard, “A Stolen Life.” The real experience of, Jaycee at the age of 11 was taken, and survived for 18 years living in the backyard of her kidnappers home, living inside a tent. Where Jaycee became a mother to two daughters in her stolen years. “The Room” is a similar story in the fact both girls were held captive in backyards of the home of their kidnappers, both women being taken on their way to school/class, getting pregnant and raising the children in their small living spaces, and finally getting out many years later.

                

These two books were both very enjoyable books. Barely could ever set the book down. The book gave you emotions to experience while reading. Such very similar stories, one being real and the other just fiction, but they both send a message out of realistic events that could happen, an just a sad story being told. “A Stolen Life” actually being the first book to make me cry, after knowing the characters in the book and even feeling trapped yourself as a reader the way she is, and it’s just a surreal reading.