4.5/5 ( )

It’s summer 1859, and Elizabeth (Lib) Wright, a nurse who worked under Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, arrives at an impoverished Irish village tasked with observing a medical phenomenon. An eleven-year-old girl, Anna O’Donnell, has reportedly taken no food for four months.

A committee that includes the local physician has hired Lib and another nurse to watch the girl, day and night, to be absolutely certain that no one’s feeding her in secret. It is generally assumed, even by the good doctor, that they’re witnessing a miracle. Why, young Anna, who claims to exist on manna from heaven, might even be a modern-day saint! Wouldn’t that put the village on the map? And so it would seem, for pilgrims are already beating a path to the O’Donnells’ door and leaving donations—strictly for charity, it’s said.

But Lib, an atheist who believes in what she can observe, thinks she’s observing a hoax, one perhaps encouraged by the local priest. Or maybe the girl herself has taken odd notions into her head. Either way, however, the committee has ordered the nurses to play sentinel but derive no inferences from what they see, a remit that grates on Lib. And as she comes to know Anna a little, she believes the girl is following her faith, yet fears for her and wishes she could learn what’s driving her exactly, or the adults who might be pushing her.

I like this premise, and how Donoghue uses it to plumb Irish folkways, religious beliefs, and moral standards as well as English disdain and misunderstanding. The O’Donnells represent an archaic, dying Ireland, amid still-fresh evidence of the Great Famine of 1845-49, while Lib stands in for the English modernists who would take a carbolic-soaked sponge to the island and scrub out superstition, if only they could.

Unlike her countrymen and -women who twiddled their thumbs while Ireland starved, Lib refuses to let Anna do the same. You have to admire the layers here, of historical resonance, cultural clash, and the personal stakes of a child at risk. Further, as befits her protagonist, Donoghue’s storytelling voice is spare and direct, and she turns small moments into large reversals.
Yet The Wonder almost founders halfway through, I think because of an authorial decision made all too often these days: to imbue a protagonist with such strident singularity, setting up the greatest obstacles possible. I don’t mean to single out Donoghue; she really is a fine writer. But this novel typifies the narrative risks in manipulating the reader’s perceptions to serve a story.

By giving Lib every conceivable English prejudice against the Irish, the novel skews against her. “What a rabble, the Irish,” she thinks. “Shiftless, thriftless, hopeless, helpless, always brooding over past wrongs.” Having studied the Great Famine and written about it, I recognize that many English people held these views around that time, which contributed greatly to the catastrophe. But by withholding key facts about Lib’s past, therefore failing to develop her inner life, Donoghue lets her protagonist remain shallow and keeps me at a distance. Portraying her in broad, overdetermined strokes may or may not give her a steeper mountain to climb, but at a price—halfway through, I almost gave up reading.

Once you learn Lib’s secrets, though, she wins you over, so completely that I feel manipulated and have to wonder whether the secrets have been withheld because of their shock value. If so, why write character-driven fiction, which this is, and allow your plot to shackle the protagonist to a false impression? The shock doesn’t even accomplish much.

Also, Lib’s an odd mix of sophistication and ignorance. The narrative never says why she’s an atheist or how she came to that, but has she really never heard the phrase “manna from heaven”? At first, I figured that Donoghue (or her editors) feared that some readers might not have heard of the Exodus story—odd, but you never know. However, how Lib learns about the manna, told at length, suggests otherwise.

She also has to have the Great Famine explained to her. Apparently, during the famine years, her own concerns absorbed her so much that she didn’t even read a newspaper. But the blight that killed Ireland’s potatoes destroyed those in England and on the Continent as well; those losses, and a succession of failed grain harvests, gave the era a singular nickname, the Hungry Forties. Rife with revolution, hardship, famine, and protest, the decade’s upheavals were absolutely deafening. If Lib slept through that, I wonder how she didn’t sleep through the Crimean War.

Consequently, for a long stretch, she comes across as a straw protagonist, made of intentionally weak stuff. That causes unfortunate ripples, because, by the time she brings her inner resources to bear, the narrative has to rush through a couple crucial emotional transitions, less plausible for that, and which muddle an otherwise satisfying ending.

The Wonder has an original premise and perspective, but I had hoped to find more artistry in its execution. ( )

I will admit that I only know Emma Donoghue from Room. Even though she has written a ton of books, I picked up Room on a whim, read it in December after it was published, and was blown away by it. When I saw The Wonder pop up to request for review*, I knew I wanted to read it.

The Wonder is the story of Lib Wright, who is a nurse under Florence Nightingale's Crimean campaign. She is called to the side of eleven year old Anna who has stopped eating since her birthday, except for a tablespoon of water a day.

Anna quotes scripture, prays regularly, and has become a miracle child in her hometown. People come from as far as the US to come see her. She states that she lives on the manna from heaven.

Lib is there to disprove Anna. She is skeptical, thinks food is being slipped to her secretly, and continues to test Anna in all sorts of ways. What happens though when Lib starts to believe that Anna is the real thing?

I have to write up front that I wasn't blown away by this book, but I also have to write that it may be because I was too hyped up for it. I was perhaps too eager for this book and wanted to devour it, while it is a book that takes its time, and moves slowly. It moves slowly because it needs to build trust and build a relationship between this girl and this nurse.

Even though I wasn't blown away by the book, I still thought it was an incredible read. Once I got used to the pace, I saw a book that explores the tension between science and faith, reason and theology, and the rational and myth with the question- can the two co-exist on the same realm? There seemed to be throw away items about fairies and other mythical creatures, but those topics were there to balance the fantasy and this seemingly real deal fantasy. It was a brilliant move on Donoghue's part.

At this point Donoghue knows her writing voice and is quite comfortable with it. Even though I didn't have much experience with her, one can tell she is an accomplished author. Her writing style was on point and she controlled the pacing of the book, where to slow it down and when to build it up. It was incredibly well written.

My worry is exactly what happened to me. She is now knows for a world renowned book, as well as movie script. She is now a famous author and people will pick up her book because they loved Room. I worry that they will be turned off because it isn't Room 2. Only time will tell on this one.

I gave The Wonder a solid 4 stars.

*I wish to thank NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for allowing me to read this book early. I received it for free in exchange for an honest review. ( )

This was an interesting book about the dangers of religious fanatism. The main character was great and the story was scary and sometimes disturbing (especially the reveal about the two brothers). I didn't mind the romantic subplot, but the kiss didn't come at the most convenient of times and seemed out of place to me when there were important matters to foccus on.
The book gripped me and it was quick to read, but due to some triggering factors I don't think I will reread this one. ( )

Real Rating: 3.75* of five, rounded up because the language is so beautiful

The Publisher Says: The Irish Midlands, 1859. An English nurse, Lib Wright, is summoned to a tiny village to observe what some are claiming as a medical anomaly or a miracle - a girl said to have survived without food for months. Tourists have flocked to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, and a journalist has come down to cover the sensation. The Wonder is a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

A fast didn't go fast; it was the slowest thing there was. Fast meant a door shut fast, firmly. A fastness, a fortress. To fast was to hold fast to emptiness, to say no and no and no again.
–and–
How could the child bear not just the hunger, but the boredom? The rest of humankind used meals to divide the day, Lib realized—as reward, as entertainment, the chiming of an inner clock. For Anna, during this watch, each day had to pass like one endless moment.

I dislike Author Donoghue's prior success, Room, a lot. I found it cynical and manipulative. I got this book thinking I'd give it a good drubbing and forget this author existed afterward.

The more fool I. This is beautifully written...so was Room...but also acutely observed and compassionately told. It was too long, it was very slow for two-thirds of its length, and it had a very strong anti-religion bias (which I share). More than anything else, I read and read and read to get more of this:

An obsession, a mania, Lib supposed it could be called. A sickness of the mind. Hysteria, as that awful doctor had named it? Anna reminded Lib of a princess under a spell in a fairy tale. What could restore the girl to ordinary life? Not a prince. A magical herb from the world's end? Some shock to jolt a poisoned bite of apple out of her throat? No, something simple as a breath of air: reason. What if Lib shook the girl awake this very minute and said, Come to your senses!

But that was part of the definition of madness, Lib supposed, the refusal to accept that one was mad. Standish's wards were full of such people.

Besides, could children ever be considered quite of sound mind? Seven was counted the age of reason, but Lib's sense of seven-year-olds was that they still brimmed over with imagination. Children lived to play. Of course they could be put to work, but in spare moments they took their games as seriously as lunatics did their delusions. Like small gods, children formed their miniature worlds out of clay, or even just words. To them, the truth was never simple.

That insight alone was worth five stars! But it came swaddled, hidden, in much too much waffle for me to give even close to all five stars. ( )