…engrossing…there is a touch of The Crucible, but I was more reminded of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. As in that book, each visit to the afflicted child is more terrifying. The difference, both ironic and awful, is that while Regan MacNeil is possessed by a demon, Anna O'Donnell is possessed by the suffocating dogma of the church in which she was raised. In both cases, the reader is introduced to a bright and loving child who is, essentially, being tortured to death. Anna's plight and Lib's efforts to save her (initially reluctant, ultimately frantic) make this book…impossible to put down…The Wonder is…an old-school page turner (I use the phrase without shame). Donoghue's grave consideration of the damage religion can do when it crosses the line into superstition lifts the narrative rather than weighing it down. In that way—as with her sturdy narrative prose, gilded about with the occasional grace-note—it also reminded me of The Razor's Edge, only turned inside out. Maugham's book is about the power of spirituality to heal. Donoghue has written, with crackling intensity, about its power to destroy.
The New York Times Book Review - Stephen King
…fascinating…The book is set in the mid-19th century, but its themes—faith and logic, credulity and understanding, the confused ways people act in the name of duty and belief and love—are modern ones. While the wonder of the title refers to many things, at its core it's an examination of the mysteries of reason, responsibility and the heart…Like Ms. Donoghue's best-selling Room, the novel ultimately concerns itself with courage, love and the lengths someone will go to protect a child. Holding Anna tight, Lib knows that "she'd give her the skin off her body if she had to, the bones out of her legs." The feeling is heartbreaking and transcendent and almost religious in itself.
The New York Times - Sarah Lyall
★ 07/04/2016
What at first seems a simple matter becomes far more-stick with it, the payoff is there.
Lib is a heroine the modern woman can admire.
Time Magazine Sarah Begley
All spectacle and gothic horror and inevitably hard to put down.
Donoghue's superb thriller will keep readers hanging on to every word, pondering how far one will go to prove her faith.
An excellent new novel that is as much a mystery as it is an analysis of the extent to which some people are governed by their faith.
Donoghue is known for her bestselling novel, Room .... [But] she is also well versed in historical fiction. THE WONDER brings together the best of all, combining a gracefully tense, young voice with a richly detailed historical setting.
Riveting.... Highly recommended.
Literary Hub Valerie Koehler
Outstanding.... Exploring the nature of faith and trust with heartrending intensity, Donoghue's superb novel will leave few unaffected.
Booklist (starred review) Sarah Johnson
A haunting novel about good vs. evil.
Readers of historical fiction will gravitate to this tale.
Seattle Times Mary Ann Gwinn
Has that vivid, ripped-from-the-headlines feel that comes from an author's utter fascination with a real-world subject.... THE WONDER is deliciously gothic.... Dark and vivid, with complicated characters, this is a novel that lodges itself deep.
Donoghue's measured prose is at its best when depicting damaged and failing flesh with extraordinarily vivid economy
A riveting allegory about the trickle-down effect of trauma.
A fine, fact-based historical novel, an old-school page turner...Donoghue has written, with crackling intensity, about [spirituality's] power to destroy.
New York Times Book Review Stephen King
Gripping.
A fine work, adept and compelling in voice, plot, and moral complexity.... Donoghue deals out the cards with real skill.
Boston Globe Katherine A. Powers
Donoghue proves herself endlessly inventive.... This is the kind of book that will keep you up at night and make you smarter.
Cosmopolitan Julie Buntin
Fodder for endless book club debates.
Los Angeles Review of Books Meghan O'Gieblyn
Rich hauls of historical research, deeply excavated but lightly borne.... [An] ingenious telling.
Wall Street Journal David Kipen
Fascinating.... Like The Turn of the Screw , the novel opens irresistibly, when a young woman with a troubled past gets an enigmatic posting in a remote place.... Heartbreaking and transcendent and almost religious in itself.
New York Times Sarah Lyall
Like [Room ], THE WONDER
A locked-room mystery, set in atmospheric 19th-century Ireland and as spare, in its own way, as Room .... A fable as lean and discomfiting as Anna's dwindling body.... Donoghue keeps us riveted to Lib's perspective throughout.... Thanks to the complexity of Donoghue's ideas, there's plenty on which to ruminate.
Chicago Tribune Amy Gentry
Donoghue, a writer of great vitality and generosity-one gets the sense that she would gladly have her characters over for dinner, as long as they'd agree to eat-has been drawn repeatedly to the genre of historical fiction not so much to inhabit or reinterpret the past as to try to fit together its overlooked, missing pieces.... Fiction is small solace for history's grief, but it's one way to set the record straight.
New Yorker Alexandra Schwartz
As in "Room," Ms. Donoghue proves a shrewd observer of the parental urge to distort reality to protect children-and themselves
The Wall Street Journal Sam Sacks
" THE WONDER by Emma Donoghue is just that: 'a wonder' of a story about religious delusion and self-denial [that] teem[s] with drama and great moral questions.... Donoghue manages to engage larger mysteries of faith, doubt and evil without sacrificing the lyricism of her language or the suspense of her storyline.
Fresh Air Maureen Corrigan
A masterful, gorgeous, and wickedly well written book.
Beautifully moody with the taut pace of a thriller, The Wonder grapples with the potency of love, both human and divine.
Sophisticated, provocative, and bracing.
The New York Times Book Review
Donoghue is a master of plot, and her prose is especially exquisite in depicting ambiguity. …In The Wonder, Gospel-like in its concern with adversity and hope, miracles are possible–perhaps through God, perhaps through woman.
A riveting allegory about the trickle-down effect of trauma.
Donoghue draws out the narrative suspense with her customary combination of historical verve and emotional delicacy . . . Like Room, this is a thrilling domestic psychodrama that draws its power from quotidian detail as well as gothic horror
With Donoghue’s readable prose and lightness of touch, we find ourselves both pausing for thought and racing forward to see what will become of Anna.
Deliciously gothic.... Dark and vivid, with complicated characters, this is a novel that lodges itself deep
A fable as lean and discomfiting as Anna’s dwindling body. . . . Donoghue keeps us riveted
Outstanding.... Exploring the nature of faith and trust with heartrending intensity, Donoghue’s superb novel will leave few unaffected.
Booklist (starred review)
Readers of historical fiction will gravitate to this tale.
Heartbreaking and transcendent
Eerie. . . . The reader is seduced by the suspense; compelled to pay as close consideration as the nurse in order to understand precisely what’s going on . . . sets a superb pace.
Thrilling and at moments palm-sweatingly harrowing.
New York Times Book Review
A haunting novel about good vs. evil.
The Wonder unfolds a cagey, suspenseful stand-off . . . Anna receives the author’s full sympathies and is a lively, endearing foil to her incredulous nurse.
Donoghue’s literary prowess creeps like a dark, menacing fog across the pages.
Riveting. . . . Highly recommended.
Claustrophobic, controversial, brilliant . . . inventive, tense, and stringently intelligent.
Donoghue’s superb thriller will keep readers hanging on to every word, pondering how far one will go to prove her faith.
Room is that rarest of entities, an entirely original work of art. I mean it as the highest possible praise when I tell you that I can’t compare it to any other book. Suffice to say that it’s potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory.
What at first seems a simple matter becomes far more-stick with it, the payoff is there.
All spectacle and gothic horror and inevitably hard to put down.
A fine work, adept and compelling in voice, plot, and moral complexity. . . . Donoghue deals out the cards with real skill.
Fresh and unusually lively historical fiction. [Donoghue’s] latest novel brings together both her preoccupation with child peril and her gift for history.
Remarkable . . . heartrending. . . . Both gripping and poignant, it’s a tribute to human resourcefulness and resilience and extremity, and a stirring portrait of a mother’s devotion.
Fodder for endless book club debates.
Los Angeles Review of Books
If you loved Room, you will love The Wonder. And if there is any justice in Canlit, The Wonder will be on the shortlists of the major literary awards this fall. And after that, undoubtedly the Oscars.
Threading her stories together like a master weaver, Donoghue takes the reader deeper and deeper into the tapestry of Kissing The Witch. A masterful, gorgeous, and wickedly well written book.
Francesca Lia Block author of Weetzie Bat
Donoghue excels at the microcosm, and her obsessive interest in rooting out the truth makes for a compulsive read. A war is being waged in Anna’s tiny bedroom, and its combatants stand for sides not narrowly confined to the Victorian era: science versus faith, progress versus tradition, rich versus poor.
It’s an intricately, beautifully wrought tale.
Donoghue poses powerful questions about faith and belief
A fable as lean and discomfiting as Anna’s dwindling body. . . . Donoghue keeps us riveted
The Wonder unfolds a cagey, suspenseful stand-off . . . Anna receives the author’s full sympathies and is a lively, endearing foil to her incredulous nurse.
Donoghue excels at the microcosm, and her obsessive interest in rooting out the truth makes for a compulsive read. A war is being waged in Anna’s tiny bedroom, and its combatants stand for sides not narrowly confined to the Victorian era: science versus faith, progress versus tradition, rich versus poor.
Donoghue is a master of plot, and her prose is especially exquisite in depicting ambiguity. …In The Wonder, Gospel-like in its concern with adversity and hope, miracles are possible–perhaps through God, perhaps through woman.
Deliciously gothic.... Dark and vivid, with complicated characters, this is a novel that lodges itself deep
★ 09/01/2016
Another powerful novel from noted author Donoghue, this one explores the dynamics of science colliding with faith and faith as an escape from responsibility. Kate Lock’s deliberately paced narration is fully voiced—with occasional lapses when a line spoken by one character begins in the tones she has crafted so well for another. Her performance suits this historical novel and the Florence Nightingale-trained nurse hired to evaluate the truth of a family’s conviction that their daughter lives without earthly food but on the mana of her faith. The nurse evolves from dismissively scornful to life-affirmingly helpful when she discovers the root of Anna’s self-starvation. The child, her parents, a doctor, a priest, and a journalist play significant roles both in the story and in Lock’s portrait of rural Ireland in 1859. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2016 - AudioFile
★ 2016-06-30
