However, the plan backfires as Nick refuses to take Jack to the hospital and only gives him some over-the-counter medicine. Her plan is to convince Nick that Jack is extremely ill, so that Nick can take him to the hospital and Jack can ask for help there.

Jack does not believe Ma and is reluctant to help her at first, but eventually agrees. She decides to tell Jack the real story about the outside world, in order to get Jack to help her escape Room. Thinking that Nick might need to sell the house, Ma is afraid Nick will abandon or kill her and Jack. What Jack does not know, is that Nick abducted Ma when she was 19 years old and that he rapes her almost every night.Ī week after Jack’s fifth birthday, Nick tells Ma that he lost his job and that he is in debt. Nick also brings food and necessities on Sunday, what Jack calls ‘Sunday Treat’.įor Jack, life in Room is not all that bad. He visits almost every night, while Jack is sleeping in his closet. The only person Jack knows besides his mother, is Nick. She tries to keep Jack as healthy as she can by mental and physical exercise, a healthy diet, brushing teeth regularly and limiting TV-time. To make living in Room more bearable for Jack, Ma has convinced him that the rest of the world is only on television and that he, she, and Room are the only ones who are ‘real’. His mother, whom he calls Ma, has lived in Room for even longer. He has lived in a shed of 11 × 11 feet that he calls Room his entire life. The book begins on Jack’s fifth birthday. Since the movie did not have a specific perspective, I was also surprised to find out that the whole book is written from Jack’s perspective: this really sheds new light on the story and reading it was an entirely different experience. If I would have read the book first and then watched the movie, everything might have looked different than what I imagined, and some of my favourite scenes from the book might not take place, making the movie less entertaining. I think that watching the movie first and then reading the book was a better idea than vice versa, since the movie paints the picture for you, which stays in your head while reading the book.

Room donoghue