#79. "Room" by Emma Donoghue

When discussing dark stories of kidnaps and psychological turmoil, it is often easy to get stuck in the darkness of its subject. How could you not when it's perceived as an event devoid of laughter and joy. While this isn't the entire reasoning behind Emma Donoghue's sometimes clever "Room," it's enough of an entry point to understanding why she chose to explore a sad story from the unlikeliest of protagonists: a young boy who never knew anything outside of Room: a toolshed in the backyard of a man who holds him as his Ma captive. The results are searing with emotion, but one has to question if it also doesn't have a bit too much limitation in this approach, managing to sound twee and tonally misguided. While that is true in small doses, Donoghue's final product shows an emotional growth that isn't just symbolic of breaking out of a terrible situation but finding a boy experiencing a new phase of his life, learning to let go and embrace the new. It's frustrating while heartwarming, creating an odd mix of satisfying results. 

#78. "Robin" by David Itzkoff

To read David Itzkoff's biography of Robin Williams is to feel like a veil has been lifted. For generations, certain things were taken for granted. Things as simple as the idea that he was always a success, starring in noteworthy movies and headlining comedy clubs are debunked here, reflecting a tragic reality for an artist who felt like he could do anything. His mind ran miles faster than anyone he met, his kindness and openness become shocking when you realize that he was often reserved privately. So much is contradictory about Williams' life, and that is some of the reason that his death in 2014 remains so shocking, ripping a hole in the space-time continuum. How could a man whose sole purpose was to make everyone else happy so crippled with sadness?

What Itzkoff proposes is that it's always been there. Even if he's never spoken about himself in any vulnerable way, his performances were reflective of a man keeping the demons at bay. He was shielding himself from ever being truly exposed, and he used humor to deflect any criticism. You can find it in everything from Mork & Mindy to even his major films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Good Will Hunting. Here was a man who reflected characters experiencing some regret and triumphing, as if he was trying to teach us all how to fight their own depression. It may be why he remained so revered, and why this biography is a definitive character study of a man whose otherwise still a mystery, never likely to be understood by anyone outside of his head.