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A review by michael_taylor
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
2.0
The Wonder is a book that is well written, but I don't think I could recommend it to anybody.
The premise is interesting enough on the face of it. Lib is a nurse assigned to watch young Anna, a girl who claims to be surviving on no food for over a month. Is it divine intervention? Clever machinations by the girl and her family? A young girl being tortured?
It's an interesting game Emma Donoghue plays with the reader, how much of this is real or spiritual, and I thought that aspect of the book was engaging to me.
Unfortunately after spending 200 pages watching a young girl slowly rot away from malnourishment, the book begins to feel rather mean spirited. Anna is so deluded by her faith that she will die for something pointless. Her parents are also faithful people, and in this book that is portrayed as ignorant. I actually don't mind beating up on religion a little bit in the novels I read, but I feel like here it is used as a tool to bludgeon the characters into stereotypes. A majority of the religious characters are portrayed as either zealots or conspirators to the crime of starving a little girl so they can make a martyr. You can be mean to your characters all you want, but I wish I felt like the author LIKED these characters.
The reveals towards the end of the book are also mean spirited. Anna is making penance for her brother because he sexually assaulted her before he died. Lib is grieving the loss of her first child. And then right at the end, we get a twist(ish?) ending that tries to put a feel good bow on the end of everything. By that point I was so worn out by it that it had no impact on me.
The premise is interesting enough on the face of it. Lib is a nurse assigned to watch young Anna, a girl who claims to be surviving on no food for over a month. Is it divine intervention? Clever machinations by the girl and her family? A young girl being tortured?
It's an interesting game Emma Donoghue plays with the reader, how much of this is real or spiritual, and I thought that aspect of the book was engaging to me.
Unfortunately after spending 200 pages watching a young girl slowly rot away from malnourishment, the book begins to feel rather mean spirited. Anna is so deluded by her faith that she will die for something pointless. Her parents are also faithful people, and in this book that is portrayed as ignorant. I actually don't mind beating up on religion a little bit in the novels I read, but I feel like here it is used as a tool to bludgeon the characters into stereotypes. A majority of the religious characters are portrayed as either zealots or conspirators to the crime of starving a little girl so they can make a martyr. You can be mean to your characters all you want, but I wish I felt like the author LIKED these characters.
The reveals towards the end of the book are also mean spirited. Anna is making penance for her brother because he sexually assaulted her before he died. Lib is grieving the loss of her first child. And then right at the end, we get a twist(ish?) ending that tries to put a feel good bow on the end of everything. By that point I was so worn out by it that it had no impact on me.