Book Review: The wonder - E. Donoghue

A very powerful novel about extremism, about ignorance and poverty and religion and guilt. A poor young girl in the middle of the blindness of her community, the greed and ignorance of her family, the guilt about a fact she is not culpable for.
But also a book about passion for one's work, in this case nursing others, and carrying on against all odds in order to fight for what one believes in. A great character in Lib the Nightingale nurse.

Overall rating:  8     Plot: 8     Writing style: 8      Cover:  7

Title: The wonder

Author: Emma Donoghue
Publisher: Picador
Pages: 368
Publication year: 2017

The Plot:

The Irish Midlands, 1859. An English nurse, Lib Wright, is summoned to a tiny village to observe what some are claiming as a medical anomaly or a miracle - a girl said to have survived without food for months. Tourists have flocked to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, and a journalist has come down to cover the sensation. The Wonder is a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.

The Author:

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, I am the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic). I attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 I earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). I moved to England, and in 1997 received my PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, I have earned my living as a writer, and have been lucky enough to never have an ‘honest job’ since I was sacked after a single summer month as a chambermaid. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 I settled in London, Ontario, where I live with Chris Roulston and our son Finn (12) and daughter Una (9).