Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Links: Goodreads

Rating: 5 / 5

No, I'm not crying. My eye is just sweating. That's all.

This book hit me as deep as The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. No, even deeper actually. It really touched me and maybe that was the reason I couldn't let it go. I finished the book, closed it and hugged it for the next hour or so. Yea, I was that touched.

So the story is about a 10 year old boy called August, or Auggie, that has a "deformed" face. I don't mean a deformed ugly face. I mean a face that would make you wanna run scared. The novel takes you through his life, the challenges, the ups, the downs, the friends, the enemies and everything in between.

Most of you are now thinking that this is one of those spiritual books that shows how a person can be Zen and stuff like that. Well, you're wrong. It is simply just the life of a little boy and the people surrounding him. That might seem a bit too simple for some people but trust me, it's not. It is just....just read it. Perfection!!

Beautiful..... on the inside.

We always say that, beauty is on the inside. "blablabla" We mostly say that to describe girls who want dates or boys that can't find someone. We never actually understand it. But I can say that now I really do understand what it means. Although I keep get reminded in this book of how "ugly" August is,  I just can't get myself to see it. It's not because the book has a bad description of him. No, it was actually quite vivid. But the way he talks, the way he is, just like any 10 year old, innocent, kind..... beautiful.


Different perspectives.

One of the things that add to the emotional depth.... emotional depth??? Is that even a thing???

Anyways one of the things that really adds to the "emotional depth" of this novel is the authors usage of different perspectives to tell the story. So part 1 is through the eyes of the main character, August Pullman; then part 2 is through the eyes of his sister. The story line doesn't start from the beginning again with every new perspective, no, it just continues off where the other part left off.

The "Different Perspectives" adds to the novel mainly because it drastically changes the way you look at characters. Most of the time you don't have sympathy for the "bad guy" in the story, but sometimes if you see their point of view they might turn out to be simply misunderstood or maybe they never meant to actually be the "bad guy"

One of these parts is though the eyes of a boy called Justin. I was surprised by that fact that this part had no punctuation at all. No commas, full stops, quotation marks....nothing!!

Part of me thought that I got my hands on an old edition of the book and that this was some sort of mistake. So I looked online and it turns out that the author (R.J Palacio) actually meant to do that.

Here is what she said:

Why is Justin’s part written without uppercase letters and without proper punctuation?I played trombone for seven years through middle school and high school. And I remember thinking back then, especially when I would get into the really low notes, that  notes on a musical staff looked a little like lowercase letters of the alphabet. I don’t play anything now but I can still read music, and I still think that way. Ascenders and descenders remind me of half note and quarter notes, depending on where they fall on the staff. The baseline of a letter is a bit like a ledger line. Certain serif faces even have strokes that call to mind that graceful little flag on top of the stem of a note. Maybe it’s because I’ve been a graphic designer for so many years, but I’m trained to see typefaces and fonts not just as communication devices, but as visual cues for other things. So when it came to writing from Justin’s point of view, because he’s a musician, someone who thinks in musical terms, it just seemed natural for me to use lowercase letters to represent his thoughts in a very visual way. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t talk a lot, because he’s naturally shy, but has a lot going on inside. The running monologue inside his head has no time for capital letters or punctuation: it’s like his thoughts are streaming inside his mind.

Actually after reading this I think what RJ Palacio did was actually quite smart. Not only writing different characters perspective but trying her best to portrait how they think even in the way she writes.

I think that this review is kinda get it long so I'll just wrap it up: This is R.J Palacio's first book and I really can see great things in this author's future. This is a simply written novel that anyone can understand. Perfect for anyone from kids to adults. Has quotes from great authors in it and star wars references that makes my heart melt.


Final Words: Nothing short of perfect. READ IT NOW!!!