They all have their own personalities despite not having any distinct borders separating them. They’re all very distinguished, both in their reputation as educational institutions and their campus. They’re known as the Five-C’s (The Five Claremont Colleges): Pomona, McKenna, Scripps, Pitzer, and Harvey Mudd. What also contributes heavily to the grandeur of the city is the fact that it’s the home of five very prestigious colleges. You’ll rarely find the restaurants and shopping attractions anywhere else. It has a village that’s filled with unique, privately managed businesses that further add to the uniqueness of the overall city. Nevertheless its beauties are unbound by the restrictions of descriptive words as they do it no justice. I didn’t.Claremont is about an hour or so away from L.A. Room is a visceral novel that does take a few pages to pick pace, but then it does and you won’t want to put it down.

Sometimes I wondered how the author managed to conjure up some scenes because they were so vivid. The writing is simple yet a bit to hard to get into because Jack is just a baby, and if you lack the patience, you’ll be frustrated trying to understand his thought process. Room is a harrowing book filled with so much sadness, and when I didn’t want to cry, I was angry and ready to fight. There’s a child like innocence in the narration that just broke my heart. The book is told from a perspective of 5 year old Jack, and as the story unfolds you get to understand why it’s Jack telling it and not the mum. Fast forward to May 2021 when I picked it up again as a physical book this time, and I’m so glad that I did. The first time I read Room, as an ebook, I found that I struggled so much and I just couldn’t enjoy it at all and gave it 2 stars. Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. But she knows it’s not enough … not for her or for him.

Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. It is where he was born and grew up it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world.

“Ma knows everything except the things she doesn’t remember right, or sometimes she says I’m too young for her to explain a thing.”

Room by emma donoghue