Captive

by Claudine Dumont, David Scott Hamilton (Translator)

In the spirit of Emma Donoghue’s international bestseller, Room, Captive is a gripping, emotional thriller about a woman’s terrifying kidnapping and captivity.


Emma has an unremarkable life: a mundane job, very little contact with her family, and no significant relationships. Night after night she drinks tequila to forget until one evening she is jolted out of her routine. She’s kidnapped by two masked men and wakes up in a concrete room furnished with only a mattress on the floor and a ceiling lamp. Suffering extreme thirst and alcohol withdrawal, Emma is seized by real emotion for the first time in a long time. At first, she tries to make sense of what is happening to her, where she is, and who kidnapped her, but as the days, weeks, and possibly months stretch on, she develops a new routine that involves stretching, drawing on the walls, running in circles, and drinking the strange solution that is provided to her by some unseen person. It occurs to her that life in the room is much like the life she had while she was free. Just as Emma begins to find comfort in her routine, she wakes to find a man in the room with her. Though she is initially disturbed and frightened by his presence, a connection slowly develops between the two. Emma comes to rely on the man as the two are subjected to various tests, including sensory deprivation, and they come up with a daring plan to escape.



Captive is a suspenseful, emotional thriller about apathy, freedom, and the importance of living meaningfully and truthfully.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, France, Adult

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2013

About the author

Lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Reviews

[Linda Strong · Rating 2 out of 5]

They come for her in the middle of the night. When she is next aware, she is locked in a grey room. There are no windows and the door is locked. The room is bare except for a mattress.

She spends her time at first thinking about her life. She's lost contact with her family, she has no friends. Her job is nothing to brag about. Every night when she's at home, tequila is her sleeping medication.

*Her mysterious captors subject her to various tests that push her to her limit and make her question everything about herself, including her will to survive.*

I really wanted to like this story. It's short .. a little over 200 pages .. so a fast read. I could not connect with the characters and the story was not suspenseful at all. I had correctly guessed at how things would go about half way through. The ending was abrupt. I did notice a translator is listed .. maybe something was lost in the translation. All in all, not a good reading experience for me.

Many thanks to the author / House of Anansi - Arachnide Editions / Netgalley for the digital copy. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

[Kyla Sawicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update - three months later I am still thinking about this book. I still have so many questions. I am torn between being annoyed with how many questions I have and how weird it was but at the same time the amount of time I have taken to think about this book makes me think that I really do like it. I’ve never quite felt this way for another book before. I am updating my rating to a four star.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️



September 2025: I need to process before I rate this lol kept me invested until the end to find out what was going on

[Ross Lockhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, with a great sense of tension throughout, but that ending is an eye-roller.

[Marc · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think my rating says it all..debut novel, had to finish it to find out what the hell she was doing in the room and why they subjected her to all that happens....

SPOILER:

You find out squat about the organization that "kidnapped" her, their motives, and the ending, which is only revealed on last page, is SO ridiculous... mix of sci-fi (big brother feel) and thriller ... I found writing styling (short sentences, sometimes just a group of single words) annoying...it would be ok once in a while, but most of the book is written that way. Positive side is that is a very fast read at 185 pages, many chapters are a quarter of a page long. Once Julian comes into the picture, there are sections with longer sentences i.e. dialogues... From other people's comments, the ending is wtf. I agree.

[mindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What in the hell did I just read? I mean seriously. What.

The premise is very similar to the Saw movies, but when you finally reach the ending, it's just confusing.

Honestly, I can't even talk about what is confusing me without spoiling the entire book.

I will say that this book was hella fast, so at least I didn't waste a lot of time on it. I mean, I was in the mood for a thriller and this was not it.

[I’ll Take It Neat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is giving me a book " hangover " I don't think I can start another till I fully get over it. WOW. Fabulous read. Worth every page

[Virginie GB · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ✨

C’était le seul livre que je n’avais pas encore lu de Claudine Dumont et j’ai bien aimé, comme les deux autres (quoi que c’pas mon pref).
J’ai lu plusieurs mauvais commentaires par rapport à la finale, pis même si je l’ai trouvé ordinaire aussi, c’est pas ça qui m’intéresse quand je lis Claudine ; j’adore l’ambiance super glauque et weird, le thriller psycho, l’évolution du personnage, ses réflexions, ses angoisses.
Bref, oui le punch est boff, mais j’ai aimé le reste et ça vaut la lecture quand même.

[Rosa Canina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4/5

At first, this short book was pretty pleasant surprise. It manages to convey the atmosphere of imprisonment and dead emotions pretty well. I have mixed opinion on the prose - extremely short sentences sometimes work pretty well, but can be a bit annoying and too plain at other times. Nevertheless, book had me in first 2/3. Alas, the ending is too simple and predictable and it ruined the book for me.

[Zana Estrella · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I had no idea what I was reading.. the writing style is unique to say the least. But it kept me reading and turning pages. It was giving squid games vibes. Introducing Julian as a character hooked me, I was more interested from that point forward. Kinda confused by the ending but overall I think I loved it lol

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. This book is translated from the original French version, so I can't be certain how much of the writing style is form the author and how much id from the translator. Most of the book is written in short two/three word sentences. I can understand the reason for this at times, however it was a bit too much for my liking. I did enjoy the ending, as I feel it wrapped up the plot nicely, while leaving still leaving the reader wondering. It answered many questions while at the same time causing the reader to ask many more. I realize that sounds confusing, but without giving out spoilers, that's all I can say. As a debut novel, is was good. Not great, but not terrible.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai aimée l'histoire.
Le rythme m'a agressé un peu au début. Mais. J'ai fini par passer par dessus. Il le fallait.

J'ai aimée la chute.
J'aurais aimée connaitre le personnage plus tôt dans le roman,
c'est une femme banale, qui vit sur le pilote automatique, comme plusieurs personnes dans le monde.
Une femme sans histoire, qui fait un travail qu'elle n'aime pas, simplement parce qu'elle n'a pas à réfléchir.
Le quatrième de couverture m'intéressait,
Mais je trouve qu'il manquait un petit quelque chose quand même à l'histoire.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

So today, just today, I had to deal with a rejection. I was so cursing myself for ever trying with that guy and for just inviting him for lunch in two. Today when I finally, after months, gathered the strength to ask him out, I got ditched. I kept telling myself I'm better off without anyone in the world and with zero fucking feelings. And coincidentally, today I sat to read this fucking book, completely unplanned.

I can say that after this book, I will feel and experience this life's events thoroughly and fully and every new experience and feeling, like it's the last one of my life. Because our human senses are our blessing, it's what's in the core of our humanity and we run from it thinking it's easier not to feel. I am sure, if we ever found ourselves in the similar situation to Ema's, we would show even less strength and resistance and even bigger happiness when being given our senses back.

This book helped me feel better so fast and it made me look at things from a different perspective. Instead to be ashamed of what I experienced, I am happy for experiencing something new and very proud of myself for making a step I never thought I would make. I gave myself the ability today to taste something new and I should feel enriched by a new experience, new feelings and new knowledge. Our senses and our feelings, positive and negative alike, are one of the things that makes us who we are, individually and as a species.

When I started reading I was wondering if the entire book was written in this particular way. By this I refer to very short sentences, derived of much description and metaphor or anything else. However, it was a perfect way to describe the situation and convey so many feelings related to it. I think the author adjusted her language perfectly to the idea she wanted to show.

[Milan]

Ema je dvadesetšestogodišnja devojka koja se boji života i povređivanja, te je odustala od njega. Nije u vezi, nema prijatelje, ne komunicira sa kolegama na poslu, nigde ne izlazi, nema hobije, roditelje viđa dva puta godišnje. Svoj čemer i jad utapa u alkohol.

I onda je, jedne noću, kidnapuju neki misteriozni likovi i zatvaraju je u praznu sobu u kojoj se nalazi samo jedan dušek. Povremeno joj donose vodu i tečnost sa hranjivim materijama kako bi preživela i to je to.

Jednog dana (ili noći, prozora nema) kada se probudi ugleda još jedan dušek i na njemu muškarca. On se zove Žilijen i veoma je uspešan, čitajte bogat, berzanski savetnik, ali koji užasno mrzi svoj posao. Toliko ga mrzi da jedva uspeva da obuzda napade besa.

Eto, sada su njih dvoje tu. Niko ne zna zbog čega, dokle i šta njihovi otmičari i tamničari žele. Ali situacija postaje sve gora i gora.

„Anabioza“ je knjiga koja mi se veoma dopala. Jedna od onih koje vas uhvate već kod tizera na zadnjoj strani korice i koje vas teraju da je pročitate što brže moguće.

Jedina je šteta što je kraj veoma predvidljiv i očekivan, pa malo kvari sveukupan odličan utisak koji je ova knjiga ostavila na mene.

„Anabioza“ je, inače, književni debi kanadske autorke Klodin Dimon koji je doživeo i svoju filmsku adaptaciju (koju sada moram da pogledam jer mi se knjiga svidela).

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written with a similar feel as "Room", this rather short book follows Emma who is taken captive and held in a gray, unadorned, windowless room. Taken from a mundane, joyless life, she is now flooded with the new desire to survive. As experiments that affect her senses begin, she learns to really feel and see for the first time in a long time. The writing style was very stream -of- consciousness, but it absolutely worked. I had a hard time putting it down...but unfortunately, I felt the ending did let me down a bit. ;). Still, this one was a ride! (There is only one spicy scene, but it was graphic. Took away points for that and ending).

[Stéphanie Boisvert · Rating 3 out of 5]

J’ai bien aimé cette histoire qui se lit rapidement, en une soirée. La fin est plutôt prévisible mais j’ai aimé le développement qui est très illustré. J’ai surtout apprécié l’introspection du personnage principal et son évolution psychologique au fil des pages.

Au final, rien d’extraordinaire mais divertissant, un peu comme écouter un film en soirée qui n’est pas un chef d’œuvre mais qui joue son rôle de nous faire décrocher quelques heures.

[Tamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nikada nisam citala knjigu slicnu ovoj. Dopalo mi se sto je pisano u prvom licu. Recenice su vrlo jednostavne, sto odgovara toj atmosferi. Autorka svojim ubedljivim opisima prenosi osecanja glavnog lika na nas. Citajuci sam se osecala kao da ja ovo prezivljavam. Iako shvatam da je pasivnost glavnog lika bitna za radnju ove knjige, falilo mi je da vise saznamo o njoj i da joj se vise priblizimo.

[MPi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Même si le thème du kidnapping n'est pas ma tasse de thé, j'ai réussi à trouver du plaisir dans ma lecture grâce à cette merveilleuse autrice qui sait si bien créer une ambiance glauque qui vous poursuit même une fois le livre refermé.

[Daniel Moquin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 sur 5.

[Natalie Breton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Style différent, intéressant

[mathilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

je suis complètement troublée, mais wow???

[Katherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beskrajno glupo.

[Eloïze Dalphond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow je suis troublée par cette lecture. Plusieurs questions restent sans réponse, mais ce livre me laisse sans mot

[The Black Lion Journal]

REVIEW FROM THE BLACK LION JOURNAL! [READ FULL REVIEW]

by Anne Logan

“The Brothers Grimm Meets Stephen King” is a quote from the French media outlet La Presse, found on the cover of Claudine Dumont’s Captive. This book is another translation (side note: I seem to be reading a lot of these lately, which makes me feel much more intelligent than I really am), so it was originally written in French, and is now translated into English by David Scott Hamilton. I found this media quote an interesting choice to include on the front of the book because I think it gave away some of the plot. By reading the synopsis on the back, you quickly discover the plot is based on a young woman struggling with alcoholism who is kidnapped and wakes up in a room by herself with only the bare necessities to keep her alive. Now according to the quote above, if there is an element of Brothers Grimm in this story, this means that she must have been captured to teach her a lesson, because she was somehow deserving of this treatment. Granted, I may be more familiar with the intentions of Brothers Grimm because I just visited the museum a few months ago. Most people are aware that they wrote fables; so of course, there must be “moral” to the story. So, in short, this quote basically told me the whole point of her kidnapping way before I even read the first page! I wasn’t wrong; there definitely was a moral to the story — but, obviously, you’ll have to read it to find out what that was.

So is it worth reading? That depends. I found it started out a bit slow, it launches directly into Emma’s kidnapping, and the first few chapters are made up of her internal monologue, wondering why she’s there, etc. Her thoughts are disjointed and a bit difficult to understand, much like bad poetry.

But then the story takes on a twist, which really yanked me back into the plot and kept me turning the 185 pages. Some of those chapters were very short, so it didn’t take me long to finish. The end was very clever and surprising, yet satisfying all the same … something that’s difficult for authors to achieve!

Overall, I liked the book. It was quick, to the point, and an interesting premise: sort of like watching a 30 minutes television show where you discover and solve the mystery all within that short time frame. My only complaint was that we didn’t know much about Emma’s life before she was kidnapped — I would have preferred to get to know her a bit more before we were thrust into this situation with her because I think it would have added to the suspense of the book. Since I didn’t really sympathize with her, I wasn’t as engaged with her plight as much as I should have been. Still, Captive is worth the read, if only to learn the lesson at the end of it.

¡PSST! © 2016 Anne Logan & The Black Lion Journal. A contributor submission shared with permission. Become a Contributor!

[Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating read. Emma lives a lonely life - she works at a dead end job, has no friends, and drinks far too much.

One night as she sleeps off another bender she is taken. Abducted. She wakes to find herself in an empty grey room - a cell - where she is subjected to a series of psychological tests. The book rips along as the reader is as in the dark as Emma is regarding her circumstances. Who are her mysterious captors? Why are they subjecting her to this? Every time she wakes up we wonder what new situation she will be faced with. You can feel, viscerally, her (and our) terror of the unknown. The writing is in short, staccato sentences that come at the reader rapid fire, and it adds to the sense of chaos that Emma must be feeling.

(Without spoiling the book, I will say this is not a terribly graphic book. While there are moments that are somewhat squeamish-making, this is not a book based on Saw (the movie) type overt graphic/torture horror.)

And then you come to the final page. I'm telling you right now that if you read the hard copy of this book, stop at page 185. The final sentence of that page would have made a perfect ending. Unfortunately the author (or her editor?) very nearly ruined what was a taut psychological thriller with a single unnecessary paragraph.

Overall an interesting read and recommended as something different in, and a literary take on, the psychological thriller genre.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

Claudine Dumont’s Captive highlights the thoughts of a woman who’s kidnapped, imprisoned, sedated, & whose body is manipulated against her will at night, including being groomed & having an IUD involuntarily inserted.

So needless to say, this is not a light book. It’s tense, often disturbing, with a provocative ending. It’s also lightened somewhat(ish) by a love story embedded within it, as a man named named Julian is eventually placed within the same room as Emma, the lead.

While I enjoyed the love story I found the overall story to be too disturbing for my taste, especially since the burden of the physical trauma seems to fall on Emma—rather than on Julian as well—& the moments after her IUD has been inserted without her consent are particularly unsettling. The ending also feels somewhat strange to me & not entirely convincing.

Captive’s a fast read that certainly took me on a ride but/& it’s too disturbing to be an entirely enjoyable read & it’s disturbing in ways that don’t always feel productive for the overall impact of the story itself.

3 ⭐️

[Matthew Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thriller. I thought it was written much in the style of The Girl on the Train. It is written in the style of short chapters and almost journal type entries. This book made me think of those that live alone in a big city, but really have no friends or family to look out for them. The central character, Emma, works in a dead-end job that has had many previous employees leave unannounced. If Emma were not to show up one day would she be missed, or would the employer also assume she had just quit without telling?, It made me wonder how many Emma’s are out there. Everything changes when one night she is captured from her home and locked in a room, soon a man, Julian joins her. This is an interesting book. It is relatively short, perhaps almost like a novella, my favourite part is the ending as lots of times I read a book and I can tell what the ending will be in the first 40 pages, this book was not like that and I loved it! A great read for a ride up to the cottage. Perhaps, too scary to read by flashlight! Keep the lights on!

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captive

The story begins with Emma who lives an unremarkable life with little contact with her family and friends. Night after night she drinks to forget until one evening she is jolted out of her routine. She wakes up in a concrete room furnished with only a mattress and a ceiling light. She feels emotions for the first time in a long time. She tries to make sense of what is happening to her, where is she and who has taken her and why. As the days, weeks and possible months pass she develops a routine that helps her survive her circumstances. As Emma begins to find comfort in her routine she receives another terrifying jolt and she must adapt to new circumstances. Her mystery captor subjects her to various tests that push her to her limits and makes her question everything about herself including her will to survive.

A very interesting book that held me captive. It was a good read except for the ending which I found silly. This author shows potiential.

[Kate Hearn · Rating 3 out of 5]

***I WON THIS IN A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY***


This was an interesting short story (short compared to the length of novels I generally read). Emma has a deadend job, no real friends, only sees her parents twice a year and drinks herself to sleep every night. One night she is abducted from her home and wakes up in a grey cell. There are no windows, the door is locked. There is a pitcher of water and one with some kind of protein powder in it for food. Emma has no idea how long she is in the grey room, when one morning there is a man, Julian, also held in the room. With time they come to depend on each other while dealing with the tests the abductors put them through (such as turning off the lights and spreading glass on the floor).

This book was very psychological. The ending had one of those wtf twists. However, it does make you wonder...with how society is going... What if.

[Mélanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

J'ai d'abord accroché. C'est mystérieux d'entrée de jeu. Mais le malaise s'est installé rapidement. Impression d'un pastiche d'une des mes auteures préférées, Karoline Georges. De son univers, de son écriture hachurée. Le titre, Anabiose, rappelle celui de Georges, Ataraxie, publié 10 ans plus tôt. La narratrice de ce roman est elle aussi séquestrée pour recevoir un traitement sans son consentement. Et reçoit à la toute fin une carte professionnelle, exactement comme à la toute dernière page d'Ataraxie...Donc du titre au style d'écriture, en passant par le noeud de l'histoire jusqu'à l'image finale, ça fait plusieurs emprunts, et c'est plutôt gênant.

[Susanna Froese · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting read. From page one, I was kept enticed by the mystery of Emma's confinement. Was she kidnapped, a prisoner of war, etc.? The short sentences in the first person format made the reading personal and impactful. Descriptions were well written, succinct, powerful. The ending was a real surprise - very clever. I really enjoyed reading this book. I borrowed this book from my sister who received if for free through Goodreads Giveaways.