Review: Wonder
Every so often you come across a book that takes your breath away and for me, “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio did exactly that. Wonder is a story about a young boy named August who has a facial deformity and how that affects his life and the life of the people around him. The story is told from the point of view of several children including August, his sister, his best friends, his “enemies”, etc. This book has the slightly unexpected quality that it isn’t a sob story at all. It is in fact humorous, honest, challenging, inspiring and deeply heartwarming. The author at no point tries to show August as a hero without any flaws just because of his condition. August wants to be like any other child – “Ordinary”. The brilliant part of the book is that in the quest to be an ordinary boy, August turns out to be an exceptional human being and in turn teaches others around him what it means to be human being.
The story, told from the point of view of the other children in August’s life, show the very real struggles that children go through whether it be acceptance of another person or acceptance of oneself. Very often books written about similar topics explore it from the narrow prism of the person with the disability/condition. However there’s often much more to the story than just that. Why do humans (children in this story) behave the way that they do? This books tries to explain all of that as best as it can.
One of the reasons I really liked this book was the simplicity and honesty with which it was written. Since it is written from the point of view of children, the author sticks to the basics and focuses only on telling the story. There isn’t any flowery language or anything of that sort. Just the story. It is simply a manual on being a human – warts and all. The book is full of phrases that have stayed with me ever since I read it. Phrases like “If given a choice between being kind and being right, always choose kind” and “Always be kinder than necessary” are simple phrases but have so much more meaning in them. The book is full of such words of wisdom. Better that most self-help books I’ve read to be very honest.
A person who reads often will know about the moment when sometimes the book goes from being good to being extraordinary. This book builds up to that moment and finally reaches the crescendo towards the last few chapters. I happened to be in a crowded metro train when this moment came upon me. People who have travelled in the Delhi Metro would know how it feels when you have people crowded around you. But in that moment everything around me faded away and I was left with just the story. All the people around me, the fact that I was uncomfortable, none of that mattered anymore. I had tears in my eyes as the book hit all the right chords. It is for these moments that a person lives for. This is why I read.
This book goes up as one of my all-time favourites because of the way it made me feel and because it made me understand what it means to be human being. I would recommend it to every single person. Even if you don’t think it was as amazing as I thought it was, you still won’t ever regret reading it.
My Rating: 5/5