Room - Emma Donaghue

Summary from Good Reads: Amazon Best of the Month, September 2010: In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time. --Lynette Mong

Ma and Jack are living in an eleven by eleven Room for seven years.  Everything Jack knows is in this Room.  He has never been outside or met anyone but Ma.  After he turns five, Ma starts to tell Jack about things that start to upset him about other people, places and things Outside.  When things change and they are both suddenly Outside, Jack has lots to learn and has a hard time adjusting.  He is scared and brave (known by Jack as scave) as he learns about Outside.

Wow, this book made me stop and think about everything that we know and how life would be by not knowing it.  Simple things like learning to walk the stairs and bees and taking a shower are all new to Jack.  I really liked how this book explained inside the Room, getting out and learning to live from Jack's point of view.  I really enjoyed this book!