It takes skill for an author to make the events of a normal day in a character’s life entertaining. I’ve definitely read books before where the results make for a fairly dull read. A Room Called Earth, on the other hand, is mesmerising, with a multi-faceted main character, and just enough going on to keep the pace up. This is the kind of book you can fly though in a few sittings.
We watch the main character get ready for a party seemingly carefree and then see her struggle through early interactions when she arrives. The dialogue in this book is clever – there’s a lot that can be read between the lines. When conversations happen, the discussion is all that’s on the page. The protagonist has to focus solely on the social interaction to keep the conversation flowing. Eventually she finds someone she clicks with and more layers to the character are revealed.
This book presents a day in the life of someone with autism. It grapples with the subject from various angles without tackling it head on which is both refreshing and sometimes aggravating. The author deliberately decided not to use the term “autism” in the whole of the book. It was something that generated a lot of discussion at the book club I read this for since we all would have liked to see the term included. Most of us found labels relating to health to be useful – a way of making the invisible visible. At the same time, it was a welcome reminder that lots of people don’t feel that way and want to avoid certain terms for understandable reasons.
I’d recommend A Room Called Earth to any avid reader. By the time I reached the halfway point, I was settling into the sofa, coffee in hand, knowing I wouldn’t be moving until I’d finished it. It’s been a few months since I read it and I still remember the emotional parts like I read them yesterday – if that’s not a sign of a good book, I don’t know what is.
Tori Pearmain 