Quite a few boxes of tissues later, I've finished reading Wonder, by R.J. Palacio and I can honestly say that, so far, no other book has affected me so emotionally. Now, I'm a pretty sappy reader; it doesn't take much to get me teary (which I'm sure this is no surprise to anyone). This book, though...
holy crap.
This book pushed me way past the point of "definitely don't try reading this in public." I sobbed. I wept. Don't think that it was only during the book's climax or some critically sentimental point or anything like that, either. Every few pages, this book repeatedly slammed into every one of my old emotional triggers, re-opening wounds and reintroducing feelings of abysmal loneliness, intense hatred, overwhelming self-consciousness, and utter self-loathing that I'd not delved into in a very long time.
This book is about a normal, geeky, Star Wars-loving boy, named August, with an incredibly unlucky fate - a rare combination of craniofacial anomalies has "...waged war on his face." The book doesn't immediately specify his anomaly, and so the story lets you imagine your very own version of Auggie, as if tempting your imagined stereotypes with the tagline "I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse." But the book is really less about what he looks like and more about what kind of people exist in the world.
Auggie's going to start school for the first time... middle school. Auggie expects the stares, the second glances, and the fake smiles as he's experienced them his entire life. He doesn't expect the viciousness of children. See, no one knows who they are in middle school and people grasp left and right for a place to fit in, resulting in personalities of all kinds thrashing about like wild suffocating beasts... regardless of what fragile things lay in their path. There are somewhat-friends, there are mean-looking nurses with golden hearts, and there are kids who blatantly shoot deadly words in the middle of class.
And all of this took me back. Granted, I can't possibly compare my life to one of a boy experiencing life away from his neighborhood for the first time, his specialness marked into his very flesh. But the way Auggie describes his experiences - walking in hallways with his head down while hiding behind his mother and inwardly begging people not to notice him, listening to someone speak and then hesitate or falter for a brief almost unnoticeable second before continuing: "She noticed me." - overwhelmed me completely.
Kids can be utter shit.
The book also has these "precepts" that Auggie's English teacher uses to teach his course. They're all about growth and being better people, and the first one immediately reminded me of the letter my 8th grade English teacher shared with us on the last day. Y'know... that same one I've written about before, instructing us to "be people of integrity." See? Hitting all kinds of emotional triggers.
I don't expect people to have the same emotional reactions that I did, but I do think everyone should read this book. Even if there's no emotional connection and even if there's a difficulty empathizing with a character who exists in a reality so different from one's own, this book must be read. I'll close with the list of Mr Browne's precepts, because I think their beauty stands to make a point outside of the wonder that is this book.
Also the book trailer, 'cause it's what first sucked me into this experience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fgB7_KpBDss
<3
"When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind." -Dr. Wayne W Dyer
"Your deeds are your monuments." -inscription on an Egyptian tomb
"Have no friends not equal to yourself." -Confucius
"Audentes fortuna iuvat." (Fortune favors the bold.) -Virgil
"No man is an island, entire of itself." -John Donne
"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." -James Thurber
"Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much." -Blaise Pascal
"What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful." -Sappho
"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can."
-John Wesley's Rule
"Just follow the day and reach for the sun!" -The Polyphonic Spree, "Light and Day"
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