I picked it up after checking which Booker long-listed novels by female authors were available at the library an hour or so before I visited. The Mars Room was the only one. I can't say if it deserved to move to the short-list or not. It's basically fine, what you'd expect of literary fiction. It fits the stereotype of MFA program writing for better and worse.Interested in your thoughts on this one. I’ve read mixed things. I have the flame throwers beside my bed to read sometime before the end of the year.
Nothing in it shocked or surprised me. A large part of it is that the justice system/prison complex/society generally fails under-privileged people, especially women/girls. That doesn't seem like a shocking revelation to me but the way the book is spoken about makes it seem like this is a real shock to some readers. It's so on the nose in places as well where I think subtlety could have been employed and made a much better novel.
I've seen it criticised as disjointed but I didn't find it that way. There are chapters and viewpoint characters that really add nothing and that makes the book bloated but not disjointed. I learned after I'd finished the novel that it had started as a short story and that seems very obvious in retrospect. The problem is that these additional and unnecessary chapters provide some of the best parts of the book. The main narrative makes sure you know exactly how to feel about the main character and that's a little tedious.
After all that negative criticism having been said it certainly isn't a bad book. It's perfectly adequate everywhere and exceptionally good in some places. Frustratingly it feels like a different editor could have gotten a much better book out of The Mars Room but it's still a solid 3* read.