Room - reaction and spoilers

I've just read Room by Emma Donaghue. I didn't like it. The first third in the Room made me feel desperately uncomfortable and final two thirds of the book were borderline tedious with the occasional bright part which all involved Ma demonstrating her remarkable personality.

As I always do after reading a book, I turn to Amazon and Goodreads, to read the reviews. Of the minority three star and under reviews on Amazon, I was struck by people who were willing to admit to being feeling sickened and revolted by the fact that five year old Jack is still being breastfed but at no point expressed the same feelings in regard to the fact that a woman had been raped on a nearly daily basis for over seven years. I love that Donoghue even anticipated this type of reaction in the book itself during Ma's TV interview: “In this whole story, that’s the shocking detail?” I mean, really people, you are so immune to the atrocious treatment of women and children (as Donoghue also highlights: "As for kids - there's places where babies lie in orphanages five to a cot with pacifiers taped into their mouths, kids getting raped by Daddy every night, kids in prisons, whatever, making carpets till they go blind...") that you aren't appalled by that but are by breastfeeding? An act that brings nourishment and comfort.

On a less dismaying note, I was also surprised, but in a less appalled way, by the amount of, I want to call them Britishisms, but since Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian, that's not quite right, but anyway by the use of words and phrases like "fish fingers" and "poo" in a book set in the USA. I'm sure there are others.

Image via Grazia Daily Book Club