RE: The Room, I agree I did find it compelling in a way. I was pushing through because I wanted to know more but there were so many gaps. I understand the technique of using the boy as the narrator, it certainly adds to the mystery at the beginning when you don't quite know what's happening etc but maybe she could've alternated narrator or sth? And although she obv made a choice to only follow Ma/Jack, I would've liked to know more about Old Nick, y'know? Mixed feelings!
I definitely agree about the mixed feelings. The narrative as is really forces you to reach, and sometimes that was hard, possibly even implausible at times. I definitely think the book could have benefited from multiple narrators, as far as Ma and Jack were concerned. Though, if Ma had been a narrator, it probably would have edged out the effectiveness of Jack's point of view; as in, her point of view would have (probably) been so much more fleshed out that Jack's would have seemed out of place or even almost irrelevant.
I thought she did a pretty good job with the subject matter, given her narrative choices. At the same time I wish she would have changed up her narration, the story could have seemed more unrealistic and/or contrived had she done it from an adult perspective. It's quite a compelling story, but still runs the risk of seeming like it's an attempt to capitalize on stories like those of Jaycee Dugard. With the way Donoghue did it, it didn't seem quite that way.
I've already read it (obviously), but my book club is reading it for our meeting later this month. I'm really interested to see what they have to say - everyone I've talked about this book with has a very different opinion about pretty much everything.
Anyone else read Room? What did you think regarding narrative technique?
