ROOM by Emma Donoghue

Review (4.5/5 Stars):
ROOM is told in the point of view of Jack, who was born and raised inside a 11x11 shed. Everything about their life inside of ROOM was fascinating, all the activities Ma thought up for them to do, the way things were explained and Jack's sheltered view of the world. My godson is 5 years old and every time I compare him to Jack, I have this heavy feeling just imagining how hard it is for a 5 year old to understand what's going on in our world. To someone who's never seen the world, never interacted with anyone besides their mother before... it must be completely terrifying. With Jack as the narrator, the reader is able to see ROOM and the world from the eyes of this isolated but highly intelligent child. Donoghue does a fabulous job highlighting Jack's way of thinking and the grammatical errors heighten the sense that it's Jack telling his story. All in all, an emotional, fascinating read that leaves the reader grateful for all the things in life that we take for granted... especially our freedom.

Synopsis (SPOILERS):
ROOM is where Jack was born and where he spends every day of his 5 year old life. Jack's Ma was kidnapped when she was 19 and brought into this ROOM where the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom fit into a 11 by 11 shed. Old Nick, the kidnapper, had designed the room so that it's fully functional as a place to live with central air, electricity, plumbing and a skylight for natural light. The catch, one could only leave this room if they know the numeric code that is punched into the password sensor by the door. As such, Jack's Ma spent 7 years cooped up in this ROOM. Throughout the first parts of the novel, the reader will see all the creative ideas Ma comes up with to keep Jack entertained and learning for example word sandwich and rhyme games. In order to explain to Jack why they're in the ROOM, Ma makes up a story about how everything outside the room is outer space and all the things he sees on TV aren't real. Eventually, the two of them make Old Nick angry and he cuts off their electricity for 3 days. This triggers the climax of the book... the Great Escape.

After their scare, Ma decides that she can't rely on Old Nick for their survival and decides that she has to help Jack escape even if she gets caught and won't be able to run away herself. She comes up with Plan A, where she tells Old Nick that Jack is really sick and is running a fever (by stinking up the room with vomit and poo smells and heating his face with a really hot water bag). Old Nick insists on buying Jack medication instead of letting him out to see a doctor so Ma resorts to Plan B. She convinces Jack that he has to pretend to be dead, in order to not let Old Nick see Jack, Ma rolls Jack up in a rug that Old Nick is to drive off somewhere to bury. During the drive, Jack has to unwrap himself from the rug, jump off the truck, run away and tell the nearest stranger to help him and his ma. This whole bit takes half a chapter but I spent the whole time on my seat with my heart pounding as I felt sorry that poor little Jack who has never been outside that 11 by 11 room in his entire life had to complete this impossible task. A task that would be difficult for me to do myself. Eventually, it all works out and the stranger that Jack sees calls the police because he was suspicious of Old Nick's behaviour. Thank goodness for patient Officer Oh who spends an exorbitant amount of time trying to decipher what Jack was saying since he was so shy and not used to communicating with anyone but his Ma. Eventually Jack gave them enough details on ROOM that they were able to isolate Old Nick's house and saved Ma.

This lead to a whole different chapter in Jack's life... as Donoghue brilliantly described, it was like he was reborn. Ma and Jack were brought into a clinic and thus beginning their introduction (re introduction in Ma's case) to society and the 21st century world. The reader watches Jack grow from not wanting to interact with anyone besides Ma, being afraid to go outside of the clinic and being confused about everything to a bright little boy eager to see the world. The best and worst thing that helped his along was when Ma tried to commit suicide (after an news interview gone wrong). Jack is then moved to his maternal grandmother's house and there, he learns to, in a sense, live without Ma. My favorite part of the book was Jack's one day adventure out with Grandma. His endearing description of crocs - "soft squish shoes with holes in it", his first trip to the library and his new friend Walker that he announces he "loves" after 3 minutes is so adorable. It's heartwarming to see Jack interact with others and integrate into society. Eventually, Ma recovers and gets an apartment of their own and the novel ends when convinces her to go back to ROOM to say good bye to everything... closure for all.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Review (5/5 Stars):

Set in the little town of Maycomb, Alabama, "To Kill a Mockingbird" brings with it all the delightful mannerisms and speech patterns of the southern states. It was a most entertaining read.

I personally fell in love with the characters and to me Atticus's patient personality and parenting skills, Scout's brash by outgoing temper, Jem's loyalty and even Boo's shy demeanor is what I will remember this book for.

The storyline itself follows the popular theme where the minority are blamed for something that the didn't do. Other books where this team had been used was Snow Falling on Cedars and Mercy Among the Children. In this particular case, Alabama's intolerance for the "coloured people" and those who want to help them is brought to light. I applaud Atticus's closing speech during the trial where he implores that the courts be equal and not discriminate people for reasons other than whether or not they've been lawful. Lee wrote a very well written speech.

Synopsis (SPOILERS):

"To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story of Scout Finch and her brother, Jem, in 1930's Alabama. Through their neighborhood meanderings and the example of their father, they grow to understand that the world isn't always fair and that prejudice is a very real aspect of their world no matter how subtle it seems.

The summer when Scout was six and Jem was ten, they met Dill, a little boy who spent the summer with his aunt who lived next door to the Finches. Dill and Jem become obsessed with the idea of making Boo Radley, the neighborhood recluse, come out of his home. They go through plan after plan, but nothing draws him out. However, these brushes with the neighborhood ghost result in a tentative friendship over time and soon the Finch children realize that Boo Radley deserves to live in peace, so they leave him alone.

Scout and Jem's God-like father, Atticus, is a respected and upstanding lawyer in small Maycomb County. When he takes on a case that pits innocent, black Tom Robinson against two dishonest white people, Atticus knows that he will lose, but he has to defend the man or he can't live with himself. The case is the biggest thing to hit Maycomb County in years and it turns the whole town against Atticus, or so it seems. Scout and Jem are forced to bear the slurs against their father and watch with shock and disillusionment as their fellow townspeople convict an obviously innocent man because of his race. The only real enemy that Atticus made during the case was Bob Ewell, the trashy white man who accused Tom Robinson of raping his daughter. Despite Ewell's vow to avenge himself against Atticus, Atticus doesn't view Ewell as any real threat.

Tom Robinson is sent to a work prison to await another trial, but before Atticus can get him to court again, Tom is shot for trying to escape the prison. It seems that the case is finally over and life returns to normal until Halloween night. On the way home from a pageant, Bob Ewell attacks Jem and Scout in the darkness. After Jem's arm is badly broken, their ghostly neighbor, Boo Radley, rescues Scout and her brother. In order to protect Boo's privacy, the sheriff decides that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife while he was struggling with Jem. Boo Radley returns home never to be seen again.

Through the events of those two years, Scout learns that no matter their differences or peculiarities, the people of the world and of Maycomb County are all people. No one is lesser or better than anyone else because they're all people. She realizes that once you get to know them, most people are good and kind no matter what they seem like on the outside." (source of synopsis: http://www.bookrags.com/notes/tkm/SUM.html)

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

REVIEW (4.5 / 5 Stars): I've read quite a few Chinese influenced books including those telling the story of new Chinese immigrants. The Joy Luck Club is one of the best as it shows how things have changed between our parents generation and our own and shows both ...sides of the mother - daughter story. It gave me a view into my own mother's perspective and how misunderstood she must feel. I loved following the story of the different families and found myself laughing at all the intentionally misspelled Chinese words - spelled the way one would read it as the younger generation of women in the novel have limited Chinese language skills. My only complaint was that I had flip back and forth to try to figure out which daughter belong to which mother and which story of a little girl in China corresponded to which old lady in America. All in all, a great read.

Synopsis (SPOILERS):
"After her mother Suyuan's death, thirty-six year old Jing-mei (June) Woo joins The Joy Luck Club. The club, which Suyuan founded in China during the war, consists of four women playing mah jong, eating good dinners, and gambling. Suyuan created the club as a way to improve the spirits of her friends during wartime. Her first husband died in the war and she was forced to abandon their twin baby daughters on the side of a road. Soon after, she met and married Canning Woo and moved to America. There, she restarted the club with three other women her age: An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. The four women and their daughters, who are about the same age, grow older together, and each mother/daughter relationship is full of sadness, anger and joy. June, for example, isn't sure she can replace a dead mother she hardly knew. Then she learns that her mother's other daughters have been found: they live in China, and the other women of the Joy Luck Club are sending June to meet them. The mothers remember their childhood in China. An-mei lived with her grandmother and was forbidden to even speak her mother's name. When her mother tried to rescue her, she was sent away. Everyone tells An-mei that her mother dishonored their family by marrying again after her husband died. Still, her mother returned to nurse her own mother after she grew very sick. Lindo's marriage was arranged when she was very young. She hated the spoiled young man she was required to live with. When he wouldn't sleep with her and her mother-in-law demanded a baby, Lindo made up a story about an angry ancestor who would kill her husband if they stayed married. She was given enough money to go to America and told to keep her mouth shut about their curse. Ying-ying remembers going to a moon festival as a young girl and finding out that the magic and ceremony is often just an act.

The daughters remember growing up with Chinese mothers in California. Sometimes they felt like they weren't Chinese at all, and didn't know how to deal with the Chinese culture in their homes. Waverly was a chess champion, but she quit when she and Lindo fought and Lindo told her it was not as easy to play or not play as she believed. Now she worries that her mother will not accept her second husband. Lindo was always able to make Waverly change her mind, seeing flaws where she once saw perfection, and she doesn't want this to happen with Rich. Lena remembers her mother as a meek woman who always wondered what bad thing would happen next. She made Lena just as meek and afraid-but Lena learned from a neighbor that not every problem is the end of the world. She knows her mother can see things before they happen, so she wonders what her mother will think of her relationship with her husband: he bullies her and takes her for granted. Sure enough, Ying-ying doesn't understand Lena's life with Harold. Rose Jordan has some of the same problems with lack of confidence. Her husband asked her for a divorce recently because she could never make any decisions. Rose still feels guilty because her youngest brother died by accident when she was fourteen. She can't decide what to do about her husband. Then she realizes that her mother supports her. She sleeps for three days and then contacts her husband, telling him that she will not leave their house like he wants her to. She will fight for it. June Woo remembers that her mother was never satisfied with her: she always wanted June to be a genius, so June was determined to waste any talent she had, just to spite her mother. As an adult, June has always felt inferior to Waverly, and believed her mother thought she was as well. During new year's dinner, she got into a fight with Waverly, and afterward her mother told her that she understood her and implied that she loved her.

The mothers think about their pasts. An-mei remembers that her mother killed herself to make a better life for her children, because in a marriage with four other wives, that was the only way for her children to have any of the benefits from her rich husband (who she was forced to marry, contrary to what her family believed). Ying-ying remembers how she gave up her strength, her will, so that she would no longer be hurt when bad things happened to her. She now realizes that in doing this she has made her daughter weak as well, and resolves to teach her daughter to be strong. Lindo remembers how she came to America, and, looking at her adult daughter Waverly, she sees how similar they are-both inside and out. The book ends with June going to China to meet her half-sisters. Her father is happily reunited with his family. June is at first nervous, but when she meets first her father's family and then her sisters, she sees that part of her is Chinese after all: her blood." (source of synopsis: http://www.bookrags.com/notes/jlc/SUM.html)