Room by Emma Donoghue****

I love having a friend who owns a bookstore. Every so often I'll stop in and see what she recommends - she has great taste and I really like almost everything she recommends. This was no exception. She told me that Room would be the talk the same way The Help was during the summer ... not sure if she's right on that yet or not, but she should be.

Room begins on a boy named Jack's fifth birthday. Jack has spent every day of his life in a tiny room with his mother that boasts a cast of Wardrobe, Meltedy Spoon, Bed, Table, but no window ... just Skylight. He's never been outside of the room, you see. His only glimpses have been what he sees a few hours each day on a fuzzy television. Donoghue paints a startlingly realistic tale told through Jack's eyes, in Jack's words. It took me a while to realize that he didn't have to put an article in front of many of the nouns he refers to regularly ... what's the point of specifying the door, when there's only the one and has never been or ever will be another? Donoghue's details are divine - specifically in the way Jack utilizes language to describe what his world is like.

Even though Jack is only five, this is decidedly not a "kid's book." Jack has to face some really grown-up things in his short time on the earth ... he and his mother refer to the feelings they have as "scave" (a word sandwich of scary, but brave). Without giving anything away, I have to recommend that the last few pages of the book are the scave-est ... and totally, utterly worth it.

This book fits right into my recent niche ... my life is pretty well perfect, by comparison. Whatever "tragedies" I may have experienced, I feel blissfully blessed with all that I have not had to even consider as an ordeal in my life. And, I'm most grateful for the reminder.