Sunday 24 March 2013

133/111 - Wonder by R.J. Palacio





I bought this book very recently because I was intrigued by the cover. It's struck me that recently I have bought a lot of books with a light blue cover, some sort of trend I guess?

This is a medium-length book but it's once more a young adult book, so very easy to read. I started this at about 8pm one night and by 11pm I was finished with it, so a very quick and compelling read, so much so that I finished it in one sitting, which feels very satisfying.

This book is about a young boy called Auggie (short for August) who has some kind of genetic disorder which has caused his face to be quite radically deformed. He's around eight years old and up until this point he's been home-schooled, however his parents want him to try to go to real s hook so that he can get used to the real world a little more, and so this book is about his journey through his first year of middle school.

It's told mostly from Auggie's point of view, however every so often another character gives another perspective for a coupled chapters before jumping back to Auggie. I really enjoyed this and I started to feel quite protective over Auggie as other kids make comments behind his back and he has to try to pretend he can't see people recoiling from his face. There were some moments in there that were a bit cheesy, too, but overall I really liked it.

On the back of the book I saw it compared to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which I have read but it didn't really make as much of an impact on me, to be honest.

Something I've noticed about my reading habits recently - I seem to be picking from books that I can read quickly, in one day if possible, as I feel like I'm falling behind. I have so many books, and so many more I want to read, that I think I'm losing a bit of my focus and choosing to read books that are short to read rather than ones which will be just as good, but maybe take me longer? I do find it very satisfying to finish a book, however I don't want that to be the only thing that drives me.

1 comment:

  1. Hi, I know what you mean about there being a lot of blue YA book covers about at the mo. I'm a school librarian and I was thinking the same. I agree there were several cheesy moments in Wonder, but once you get past them it's a nice enough story with a good message. I liked the Grans character. (I thought August was 10 or 11. He'd still be in primary school if he were 8).

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