Donoghue's Room

So many missed opportunities in this novel! While based very, very loosely on the true story of that nutty Austrian who locked his daughter up in some basement-type thing under his house and fathered several kids by her, this novel is not believable. First of all, the woman held captive is a stranger and was in her late teens or early twenties (I don't recall) when abducted. But, the real problem comes with the ridiculous escape scene. I'd need a full Home Depot's worth of rope and wire to suspend my disbelief for that one.

Then, my huge peeve because it nagged over and over throughout the book: despite the fact that this kid has been born in captivity in American and never had any contact with anyone but his American born mother, the American man that holds them captive and their only media is American TV, the kid uses British English(or should I say Irish English) at least as often as American English. What five year old American kid says "bum" for butt?

Some of the gory details are what made parts believable, but the characters were not developed. There was so much that could have been more interesting. Little tidbits were tossed out like the fact that the mother/abductee was adopted, her habit of breast feeding her son at age five and the son was also the son of the man who abducted and raped her. Did she not resent the son on any level? Did he not remind her in anyway of this man? So many unexplored opportunities.