![House](/uploads/profile_image/534/9df907bb-3385-4e0f-b3ef-921af56e1534.jpg?m=1604478989)
House
Book
A luxurious, graphically compelling vision for contemporary domestic living, as observed and...
![My Name is Why](/uploads/profile_image/9b4/b6393ad2-c87e-4e2b-b6c9-4b1960e959b4.jpg?m=1572347132)
My Name is Why
Book Watch
How does a government steal a child and then imprison him? How does it keep it a secret? This story...
Non-Fiction Memoir
![A Mother's Secret](/uploads/profile_image/179/f030652e-7223-455e-9551-9695c6e1f179.jpg?m=1574973455)
A Mother's Secret
Book
When seventeen-year-old Belinda Phillips falls in love with a handsome Anglo-Indian officer, she...
![Whisper Me This](/uploads/profile_image/345/6b4357b2-cfe7-4007-ae46-b4d72e9cd345.jpg?m=1533889538)
Whisper Me This
Book
Single mother Maisey Addington has always fallen short of her own mother's expectations--never...
![Fort: Cats and Dogs Expansion](/uploads/profile_image/2bb/152c43b5-f5ec-4deb-84e2-17dd02b812bb.jpg?m=1643854619)
Fort: Cats and Dogs Expansion
Tabletop Game
You've begged and pleaded with your parents and finally...it's time to get a pet! Fort: Cats &...
![40x40](/uploads/profile_image/0e3/630e4ff5-bfdf-4760-9e37-29f3ad9090e3.jpg?m=1522362006)
ClareR (5642 KP) rated The Mars Room: A Novel in Books
Jul 30, 2018
I can see why this book has been nominated for The Man Booker Prize 2018 - it clearly shows how a childhood of poverty and benign neglect can lead to drug addiction and crime. It also shows the awful conditions of the prison that Romy is kept in and the hatred of the guards towards their charges. This isn't an environment of rehabilitation, it's an environment of harsh punishment. Which probably explains the high rates of reoffending.
It's a frustrating book to read, because I think the reader really does start to care about the people that they read about (at least I did), even though the writing doesn't actually invite us to feel for the characters. In fact it's all written in quite a detached way. They are more than just the crime they committed, and this book shows that.
![The Genius of Valhalla: The Life of Reginald Goodall](/uploads/profile_image/f03/bebb8511-c6f9-4993-9df3-ee8577138f03.jpg?m=1522360829)
The Genius of Valhalla: The Life of Reginald Goodall
Book
When Sir Reginald Goodall died in 1990, at the age of 88, he had already acquired cult status and...
![Nobody's Child](/uploads/profile_image/463/b157e05f-96ba-41e5-abcc-9970762a2463.jpg?m=1522333850)
Nobody's Child
Book
A PLEA - FROM THE HEART If you were to walk a mile in my shoes, you'd understand so many things,...
![Gender, Asset Accumulation and Just Cities: Pathways to Transformation](/uploads/profile_image/8ef/290514cf-3432-46a7-8b24-f266a30a58ef.jpg?m=1522358281)
Gender, Asset Accumulation and Just Cities: Pathways to Transformation
Book
With more than half the world's population now living in urban areas, urbanisation is undoubtedly...
![Childhood Adversity and Developmental Effects: International and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives](/uploads/profile_image/529/76c83751-ee2d-4e6e-8c25-8fba89124529.jpg?m=1522354855)
Childhood Adversity and Developmental Effects: International and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
Book
Child trauma and violence is not an issue that is constrained to one nationality or one ethnicity. A...