Room by Emma Donoghue

Thank goodness I persisted and that my friends encouraged me to persist. Because the first time I took this book out of the library, I read a few pages, got discouraged, drew conclusions about it that were not even to close to what the book is about, and returned it.
I am so glad that I listened. What an amazingly intelligent and creative work of fiction! Room is told from the voice of Jack, a five year old boy who has lived his entire life in an 11 by 11 foot room with his mother, a captive - the victim of a rapist and kidnapper. She was "stolen" by a bad man (the way Jack describes it) on her way to the college Library and has been living there for about seven years. Jack is the man's son, but that is really never discussed between Ma and Jack.
Jack knows no other world and his days are full and rich the way he tells it.  There are "thousands of things" to do every morning and Ma has set up his life for him in a very interesting and rich way. Jack is happy most of the time, except when Ma is Gone. Everything in Jack's life is a proper noun: Room, Bed, Wardrobe, Rug, and the outside world in Outer Space. What he sees on TV is not real to him. Only he and Ma and Old Nick are real. Ma constructs a world for Jack that explains everything for him in a way he can accept and even love.
When she choreographs their escape, using Jack (what a bold and brave scenario she creates and gets Jack to go along with!) to accomplish the task, she ends up bringing Jack into a world that he is fears and hates. It was safer for him in Room; he becomes the focus of tabloid headlines when their escape makes it to the news.  He does't understand this new world. Why shouldn't Ma breastfeed him? How can those people who "live in the television" have depth and size? How would they fit?
Jack meets a whole new family and has to live without Ma for a while because she needs time to adjust to life again. He knows no other life than that which he had with her in Room.
Read "Room."  You will not be disappointed!