REVIEW OF WONDER by R.J. Palacio

You won't know what you've missed out on, if you haven't already picked up this Wonder of a book.

I won't even go to the extent of saying that it's a page turner. On the contrary, this story makes your heart so full and eyes brim over, you can't help but to not buy some time for yourself until you're ready to pick it up again.

It has the effect of churning your emotions to a fine powder and at the same time stay intact in the recesses of your heart. But try as you might, you cannot…will not abandon it halfway or stash it away, unforgotten and unread. No!

***

August,-- Auggie as he's fondly called by his family, is a fifth grade middle schooler struggling to find his place in a new prep school after being homeschooled in his initial years for the way he looks, attributed to a gene mutation.

Going through umpteen correction surgeries from babyhood to present day, Auggie still doesn't fit the aesthetic norms set by society. Although the kid is intellectually sound, the only outsider who loves him unconditionally is his elder sister's bestie—Miranda.

Needless to mention how pre-teens move up the food chain once they form a clique or become popular, it's hard enough blending in as it is but can you even begin to imagine what an almost impossible, disastrous task it is for kids who look like Auggie…

Shunned by everyone like the plague, sniggering behind his back within earshot, Auggie finds his tribe along the way too–the kids who are kind to him but only out of compulsion by the school to be inclusive to the specially abled as he finds out along the way.

Eventually, this blunt truth is revealed to Auggie in the harshest way possible and this, in turn, rips at the very fiber of your being.

The facade melts away and this is the most wretched day for Auggie, a shameful one for the so-called friends and an extremely difficult chapter for the reader…

Written in First Person POV, you will cry with Auggie, feel his humiliation and helplessness at your very deepest core, relate to his innocent joy splintered in a nanosecond!

And then you can't go past without sparing a thought for Auggie’s parents who only want the best for their boy, to study alongside kids his age in a classroom.

An intense deluge of reality trips you off your well grounded charade, an oblivion of your own high school days.

-Was I privy to any bullying going on in the hallways or the playground?

–Did I by any chance choose not to understand or notice and blindside an entire incident unfolding?

–Did I try to step in and stand up for the underdogs, the lonely, the isolated and the outcasts?

–Was I the Summer who shared a lunch table with the Auggies, the Jack Will who crossed swords with popular kids like Julian to shield the targets?

–Would I, for even a moment at that age, hesitate to report it to the school and risk the wrath of a powerful coterie and their toxic notes slipped into my backpack?

All these demons lose no time in surfacing to the fore and you have no choice but to face them and do some serious shadow work.

I have relived my entire high school years during this entire read and by the time the story ended, I was already in a deep introspection, disturbing though it was.

Auggie’s personal losses, his laughter, his tears, his heartbreak, his betrayals, his godforsaken days, his withdrawals and ultimately his triumphs all became mine.

Auggie wins the hearts of everyone in his grade…yes even those of the cronies of the big bully Julian when they're tired of following his nonsensical doings. Good sense prevails and their conscience starts speaking louder than Julian’s smear campaign.

How Auggie pulls himself together and doesn't let the world dictate what he should look like, his parents who accept him and love him to bits for who he is, the classmates Henry, Miles and Amos who eventually come around and are remorseful for the jerks that they've been and cheer for him the loudest in the school auditorium when Auggie is on the High Honor Roll at graduation and also wins the Henry Ward Beecher medal for strength of character will leave you teary eyed, yet you will want to embrace this child and tell him what a wonder of a wonderful Wonder he is!

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