3.5 stars I read an in-depth article in New Yorker Magazine that made it apparent why Rachel Kushner can so vividly bring her characters in this book to life. (The link to the article is below.) She followed an inmate at a California prison because she wanted to have people in her life “that the State of California rendered invisible to others.” She brings these real people to us through a cast of characters in her fictional account of life in prison. This book definitely depicts experiences tha...

When a friend asked me whether I liked the book I was reading, I told her, “It’s refreshing! A novel about women in prison!” I was dead serious. It was only after my friend was losing it, laughing so hard, that I realized how weird my comment was. Laughing now too, I tried to defend myself. I just get tired of straight old life; there’s so much “regular” out there. Can I help it if I like to read about down-and-outers? The truth is, the dark is sometimes my light—I prefer rain to sun, for instan...

The Mars Room pushed all the right buttons for me. I liked Kushner’s The Flamethrowers, but this was something else altogether. Here Kushner uses her talent to extraordinarily potent effect. The story is set in the early 2000s, focused primarily on Romy Hall, who is in a women’s prison for life for murder. Kushner does a great job of showing the reality of Romy’s life — where she came from, how she got to prison, and her life in prison. There is no sugar coating. Romy’s life is harsh and she is

Romy Hall is starting two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility. Her crime? The killing of her stalker. As Romy forms friendships over liquor brewed in socks and stories shared through sewage pipes her future seems to unfurl in one long, unwavering line, until news from beyond the prison bars forces Romy to try and outrun her destiny.I had really high hopes for this book. It sounded right up my alley and I thought I would love it. I enjoy books where each chapter

Rachel Kushner’s novels defy categorization. Her work reads easily but has a complexity that resists summation. She breaks rules and changes minds. This novel is both heavy and light at the same time, like a women’s prison in the Central Valley of California is tragic and absurd. Only for the untethered is it the joke it sometimes appears. Kushner is for adults. She talks about sex and violence in a way that only adults will understand. Deviance is something else. Criminality is different again....

"If I had never worked at The Mars Room. If I had never met Creep Kennedy. If Creep Kennedy had not decided to stalk me. But he did decide to, and then he did it relentlessly. If none of that had happened, I would not be on a bus heading for a life in a concrete slot." The Mars Room grabbed me from the get-go and I was hooked! Romy Hall is serving two life sentences for murdering her stalker in front of a child. Before this she worked as a stripper in a club called The Mars Room. We follow both

Let me out!  I don't want to read this book any more.  Not quite halfway through, I guiltily add it to my scant DNF shelf.  I neither liked nor disliked the characters, and the way it was put together seemed disjointed to me. I am aware of the extensive research, time, and effort on the author's part in writing this book, and I do respect that.  As an aside, it tickled my funny bone for there to be a character by the name of Laura Lipp who never stopped talking. 

Library Overdrive Audiobook....read by Rachel Kushner I didn’t even consider this book when it first popped up. “Telex From Cuba” was a little too politically dense and long. There was a good story inside - but I remember the time & effort I put in - and wasn’t looking forward to ‘that’ experience again. Plus I have a paper copy of “The Flame Throwers” which I’ve started and stopped too many times. (the damn print is tiny)....So - with low expectations - I downloaded the public library’s *Audiob...

At first this seems like a monumental achievement; a masterful storyteller giving voice to the incarcerated. Difficult characters come to life in unexpected ways. They're complex, flawed, a little evil and a lot good. The writing--as in, the actual formulation of words--is truly impressive. About a third of the way in, however, it becomes abundantly clear that no plot will emerge and the same old theme will be sung many times over. The edgy characters lose their edge, and the mystery of how ever...

I’m bummed to say that I didn’t enjoy The Mars Room. It seems to be one of those books where people like it or they don’t, with little middle ground. Unfortunately I’m in Camp Don’t on this one. The story begins with a young woman, Romy Hall, who is on a bus ride to a new prison in California. Prior to prison, she was a stripper at The Mars Room, and is a single mom with one son, Jackson. While I did appreciate the true, unpleasant realities of prison life that were described, I had a hard time

2 1/2 stars. It's taken me a long time to admit that I just didn't like The Mars Room very much. Even as I was struggling to keep my eyes on the page, keep reading, and not get distracted by that piece of fluff on the floor, I was doing my best to write a positive review in my head.I thought I would love it. It felt like I should. What doesn't sound great about a gritty prison novel dissecting class, wealth and other power structures in the penal system? Diverse characters, complicated family dy...

Orange is the New Bleh.

I'm one to admit when I just do not get the hype on a book. This is one that I just did not jump on the train with. I am bit confused by it actually. The majority of the book is about Romy, who has been sentenced to two life sentences for murdering her stalker. She is poor and worked as a stripper..so she basically stood no chance in the justice system.This part of the book kept me interested. For some sicko reason prison type dramas are one of my favorite subjects...and it does not have to b...

The Mars Room is a provocative, raveworthy exploration of choices or, indeed, the absence of any perceived choice for adolescent and teen female criminals on the lower echelon of the socio-economic scale who grow up sexually abused, addicted to street drugs and/or engaged in a sex-related trade because they've had no choice in where, how and by whom they were raised, the adverse societal effects being the counterproductive institutionalization of a legion of women, their repetitive recidivism an...

Hustling for Every Little ThingReal power is the power to humiliate. Humiliation requires the participation of the victim. Participation in humiliation is what allows coercive society to exist. Armies, religions, prisons are examples notable not for their differences from what is ‘normal’, but rather for the norms they make obvious. To say it plainly: to be human is to be humiliated, including those who are in power, who are mostly men.Children are humiliated as a matter of cultural routine. If

Rachel Kushner writes about mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex, and she does it by looking at the individuals who make up that mass, and the singular rules and facilities that constitute the bigger complex. Novels about the poor, about drug addicts and the disenfranchised always run the risk to use their protagonists as mere devices in order to illustrate societal problems (even Brecht often did that), but Kushner gives her characters dignity and complexity. She excuses nothing...

For some reason I had a preconceived idea that The Mars Room would be a po-faced social commentary loosely shaped into a novel. Expecting a lecture, I got a guttural roar. Not to mention a ‘stayed up all night to finish it’ compulsive read.Comparisons to Orange is the New Black (the show, not the book) are apt, but only to a point. Where that show often adds levity in the form of goofy comedy and prison romance, The Mars Room avoids sensationalism and displays much blacker humour and a grimmer r...

This is a strong case of "it's not you, it's me." I have tried to read and like Rachel Kushner before, back when I read The Flamethrowers when it was the it book of the season. In the case of that book, what lingers is the description of the motorcycle crossing the salt flats, but at no point did I connect to the plot or characters. And unfortunately we are here again. I've read almost 40% but just need to acknowledge that it isn't working for me, as I've been reading other books in the breaks t...

I found this book structurally challenging, emotionally distant, and intentionally didactic. I’ve hit a rough patch with popular books recently, so I tried to ignore how disjointed this felt (and how disinterested I was) but in the end, it’s a 2.5 for me.

3.5 stars!I received an ARC from a Goodreads Giveaway of THE MARS ROOM by RACHEL KUSHNER. Thank you so much! I thought this was a very good read and I’m glad that I read it! I think it’s definitely worth the read!Even though this book was a little structurally & mentally challenging for me to read there was something about it that had me glued to those pages. When I wasn’t reading this one, I was thinking about it. It got under my skin, I was interested in Romy and the details behind her incarce...