I didn’t put it back down until I finished it.  It’s well written, the story engaging, the characters ones you immediately care for. Basically, its core components were everything a good book should have, and then some.

Yet the subject matter at times was disturbing and the ending hopeful, but not happy or perfect. I loved it.

Room by Emma Donoghue
ISBN: 9780316098335
Little, Brown and Company
Fiction, 321 pages

FTC Disclosure: I own it baby!!

It seems I’m not the only fan:

• New York Times Best Books of the Year
• New York Times Notable Book of the Year
• Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
• Alex Award
• ALA Notable Book
• Commonwealth Writers’ Prize

Many will see similarities to the Duggard case, and honestly, that’s why I decided to read a bit of it. However this story was inspired by the Fritzl case.

The narrator is five year old Jack and for the most part, I felt his voice reliable. However, there were a few times I questioned that. I overlooked it because it was the only way the telling worked. At times his unique view of the world stunned me.

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don’t have jobs, so I don’t know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there’s only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.

How do you re-introduce a person to the world? How do you do it with a child who has known nothing else? Jack is an alien in the world, but not in his own skin, which helps him adjust a lot better than his mother.

I can see why this would be a good choice for book clubs. The last part of the book begs to be debated and discussed. I’m not sure I liked how Jack’s mother came off. I can understand it, but it struck me wrong.

But that’s the great thing about books like this, these feelings you are left with to mull over and try to make sense of.  This is easily a book that begs – demands – too be reread. I don’t think I can give it a higher recommendation than that.

But, and I have no idea why, my inner goblin just wasn’t feeling it.

I tried zombie stories. I’ve been reading a lot this year and am looking forward to season two of The Walking Dead starting tonight.

Maybe that was the problem. Too much of a good thing. After a while my spook-o-meter was barely registering. I needed something that I wasn’t familiar with, something that would creep me out, but not so much I’d have to sleep with the lights on for several weeks after finishing.

Vampires are cool. But I tend toward either the classic version or one’s with an interesting twist like Guillermo Del Torro’s The Strain. Which reminds me, I need to read book three of the trilogy, but it’s one of those I know will scare me a little too much, and I was looking for a some frighteningly fun middle ground.

I did find an interesting book in the store where I work. It’s called Renfield: Slave of Dracula. It seems like it would be a great companion piece to Stoker’s work. Much like Mary Reilly to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which brings me to the cure for my apparent malaise.

In another I-could-just-kick-myself-for-never-reading-sooner moment, I read Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of the dark side of man personified and exposed. I had no idea it would go so quickly, and not just because it is a novella, with most editions being less than 100 pages.

I even made the effort to pull down Valerie Martin’s book to read as I liked the movie and hoped the book was better – and it is. It is also a short novel and easily read in one or two sittings.

My recommendation is that if you have never read either, read them together. If you’ve only read Dr. Jekyll, then I highly recommend you re-read it with Mary Reilly. You will not be disappointed.

Both are dark and disturbing. One exploring the inability to deal with the evil within, the other giving voice to the victims of such evil. The perspectives of the main characters in each book help give a more complete view of how people and society deal with something that lives within us all.

Dr. Jekyll thought he could banish it, destroy it. His folly only made things worse, amplifying the darkness inside all of us and becoming a prisoner to it.

Mary Reilly, before working for Dr. Jekyll, had her own experiences with a man who could not contain his demons. Yet she does not become fear’s captive. Interesting since this is set in Victorian times and women’s roles in society were such that her strength and character stand out against the backdrop of such a sexist society.

I feel it is no coincidence that Valerie Martin developed her story from a woman’s point of view. How better to showcase and manipulate the theme of duality? Stevenson’s work is nearly without a female presence, whereas Martin’s Reilly is all feminine as it is told in the first person.

Reading these two books was exactly what I needed. I am more in the Halloween mood than I was last week.

I might even go buy some bags of candy today.

Or maybe not. Unless I can hide them really well, including from myself, it might be better to wait until the night before – or even the day of. My scale, and dentist, will thank me.

Picking up a stray book from the shelf where I work can be dangerous.

More like dangerous fun.

On a whim I picked this up just wanting to know if the story was as interesting as the blurb.

It’s not like I’m so starved for reading I need to wander the aisles looking for a book. In fact, I owe this blog and a couple of publishers reviews – a few of them. But when you find a gem like this, you just have to go with the flow and enjoy what gifts you are given.

The story leaves strong impressions that last with you long after you put down the book: that the Minotaur symbolizes much more than a creature who is half man, half beast. That perhaps, this is a redemptive tale. Or demonstrates the struggle in dealing with the duality inside ourselves.

His story is one that demonstrates the complexity it takes to not only deal with these struggles but how to deal with needs and longings that make us wonder what side is human and what side is animal and how to reconcile the two.

I could be way off. But that was my initial impression and I hope to either confirm or retract this sentiment when I re-read this novel. And I will. This is definitely a keeper.