I had seen a write up about this novel in one of the magazines I read and had it on my list of books to read. When I read the review, I thought the mother kept Jack, the five-year-old, locked up in a room against his will but reading the novel, I found out both Jack and his mother are locked in an 11x11 room against their will. Over Christmas I was reading this at my mother-in-law's and she asked me about it. When I began telling her about it, my husband made the comment that teenage girls are kidnapped all the time. He reminded us of Jaycee Lee Dugard, so this story could have actually happened. Just like Dugard and her children, Jack and his mother had no medical check-ups and were kept in a soundproof building in a guy's backyard. Is life imitating fiction, or is fiction imitating life?
The novel is told from Jack's point of view but unlike the innocent eye narrator Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, we understand more than Jack does. Jack has been isolated for five years, and once he and his mother escape the room, Jack has to learn that the outside world is real.
This is not a novel that I would recommend to everyone. I think well-read and more mature readers will enjoy this more than others. Because Jack does not comprehend everything around him and cannot express himself in an intelligent way all the time, some readers may be lost.
This is a believable story, and I wonder if other girls who are kidnapped and survive deal with the same type of trauma after the ordeal is over.
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