Alina’s Comments (group member since Sep 14, 2012)

Alina’s comments from the ELEVEN READER'S CLUB group.

Room by Emma Donoghue
Update # 1

Word Image

“If I was made of cake I’d eat myself before somebody else could.”


Vocabulary

Cornices: An ornamental molding around the wall of a room just below the ceiling.
Labyrinth: A complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one's way; a maze.
Equinox: The time or date when the sun crosses the celestial equator and the day and night are of equal length


Rhetorical Devices

“I hear a tiny sound that must be Jeep’s wheels coming alive…” – Personification
“Ma thinks Guernica is the best masterpiece because it’s realest…” – Allusion


One-Sentence Statement

Above any and everything else, I’m feeling slightly disturbed by the events and situations that are currently unfolding within the book.

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Room by Emma Donoghue
Update # 2

Word Image

“Yeah, but I thought he was going to punish us too.” I try to imagine. “Like if there were two Rooms, if he put me in one and you in the other one.”


Vocabulary

Honeycomb: A structure of hexagonal, thin-walled cells
Mutiny: An open rebellion against the proper authorities
Icarus: (Greek mythology) Daedalus’s son who use a pair of wax wings made by his father to escape from Crete, but fell into the sea and drowned as a result of flying too close to the sun.


Rhetorical Devices

“My head’s going to burst from all the new things I have to believe.” – Hyperbole
“My tummy’s all knotted.” – Metaphor


One-Sentence Statement

The story line, the narrative of the story and Jack’s voice are fast-paced, thrilling, and original to read. The suspenseful developments in the story are keeping me hooked as I've started to adapt to Jack’s voice.

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Room by Emma Donoghue
Update # 3

Word Image

“My favourite bit of Outside is the window. It’s different every time. A bird goes right by zoom, I don’t know what it was. The shadows are all long again now, mine waves right across our room on the green wall. I watch God’s face falling slow slow, even orangier and the clouds are all colours, then after there’s streaks and dark coming up so bit-at-a-time I don’t see it till it’s done.”


Vocabulary

Precinct: a subdivision or district of a city or town under the jurisdiction of or patrolled by a specific unit of its police force
Incarceration: to shut in; confine
Catatonic: an abnormal condition variously characterized by stupor, stereotypy, mania, and either rigidity or extreme flexibility of the limbs


Rhetorical Devices

“He’s all shiny like a dagger.” – Simile
“That old plastic comb with half its teeth snapped off? We need it like a hole in the head,” – Sarcasm


One-Sentence Statement

As suffocating at Jack’s mother found the room to be; Jack found it equally comforting. It was the only reality he had known and his transition to the “real” world shows just how odd our normal world can seem to someone who has never lived in it before.

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Room by Emma Donoghue
Update # 4

Word Image

“Pictures in the window are like in TV but blurrier, I see cars that are parked, a cement mixer, a motorbike, and a car trailer with one two three four five cars on it, that’s my best number. IN a front yard a kid pushing a wheelbarrow with a littler kid in it, that’s funny. There’s a dog crossing a road with a human on a rope, I think it’s actually tied, not like the daycare that were just holding on. Traffic lights changing to green and a woman with crutches hopping and a huge bird on a trash, Deanna says that’s just a gull, they eat anything and everything.”


Vocabulary

Contrail: a trail of condensed water from an aircraft or rocket at high altitude
Tagliatelle: pasta cut in narrow ribbons.
Carbonara: a sauce for pasta containing eggs, minced bacon or ham, grated cheese, and seasonings.


Rhetorical Devices

“Hang on, here’s the Beatles…” – Allusion
“Dad will get his act together in a while,” – Idiom


One-Sentence Statement

This story is progressing really well; it’s not too slow nor too fast. Jack’s mother overdosing herself on drugs is definitely not something I expected to happen. Although I don’t expect Jack to ever fit in with us, he is starting to adapt to the “Outside” despite feeling scave (a cross between scared and brave).

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Room by Emma Donoghue
Update # 5

Word Image

“I’m painting at the kitchen table in Grandma’s old apron that has a crocodile and I Ate Gator on the Bayou. I’m not going proper pictures, just splotches and stripes and spirals, I use all the colors, I even mix them in puddles. I like to make a wet bit then fold the paper over like Grandama showed me, so when I unfold it it’s a butterfly.”


Vocabulary

Perversely: showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unacceptable
Archetype: a typical example of a certain person or thing
Incinerator: an apparatus for burning waste material


Rhetorical Devices

“I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world,” – Simile
“I keep thinking what if it was the mother bunny that ran away and hid and the baby bunny couldn’t find her.” – Symbolism


One-Sentence Statement

I think visiting Room one last time allowed them to properly and fully move on; it was a part of their lives for the longest time and will always be a big part of their memories. Their visiting it one last time, however, really allowed themselves to let it go and escape from it and the horrors inside of it.

At first glance, Emma Donoghue’s award-winning Room is just a book; except that it isn’t. Simply speaking, the book is about an abducted woman and her child being forced to spend their lives in a single 11-by-11 room, and when I had first read the summary of the book, I was instantly reminded of the renowned Jaycee Dugard case. Since the plot felt hackneyed and a bit of a drag, I was also originally slightly skeptical about picking the book up. Regardless, I decided to give the excerpt a try, and am glad I did.

The excerpt was intriguing, to say the least. The very first thing that piqued my interest (and also the one that will probably keep me going) was the perspective of the book. Room, the entirety of the book, is told through the eyes of the 5-year child, Jack. Jack, who was never really exposed to the “real” world, is a stranger to everything that we’ve accepted as normal in our life. His unusual (well, unusual for us) views allow Room to explore the pretentious nature of our world, and from his standpoint the flaws in our world are a lot more apparent. However, Jack’s only part of the reason why I fell for this book, hook, line, and sinker.

Implicit connections are this book’s strength, and I’ve always enjoyed books that I can understand and relate to, whether they’re direct or indirect. For example, the feeling of restriction we experience when we don’t have the freedom to do certain things, and our infuriating inability to help ourselves in such situations. We've all been there, and we all know what it feels like. Such ideas are the essence of the book, and they give the book a more realistic aura.

Perfection is fiction, though. There are elements in the book that I haven’t quite gotten used to yet, but on the whole, I’m looking forward to reading this book.