Good for book clubs This one was engaging enough to hold my attention and keep me wanting more details and answers. It's a different genre for me and was suspenseful and captivating, albeit a bit slow in a few sections. For me this proved an an ideal book group read as there are several topics worthy of discussion and specific elements that I was keen to explore with others.
Oh, this was a beautiful book Lib Wright, a nurse who got her training under Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, accepts a post in rural Ireland to watch over a young girl who claims to be subsisting without food. Is it a hoax or a miracle? A tangled, beautiful story of religious fervor, secrets, misunderstandings and the power of family love. Also a real feminist tale of the manipulation of women and girls by the medical establishment and the Catholic Church, with echoes of today.
The Wonder I was in need of Emma Donoghue's The Wonder, a mystery novel that clocks in at just under 300 pages and took me about four hours to read. The Wonder is the story of a girl named Anna O'Donnell, eleven-years-old, and her refusal to eat. Lib Wright is a nurse assigned to watch the girl--just watch her. Anna's parents have claimed that Anna able to live without any food. Some of the local citizenry think they have a bonafide saint in their midsts. However, others in the little Irish village think the entire thing is a hoax, that Anna is somehow sneaking food. Lib and another nurse, Sister Michael, are assigned to watch the girl and figure out if/how she is being fed.
Lib is a skeptic, probably an atheist, who has no patience with the Irish tendency toward superstition, whether in the form of belief in fairies or belief in the Roman Catholic Church. She is sure the child is somehow getting food--but how? She searches the room carefully for any places food could be hidden. She checks out the seams of Anna's clothing for places crumbs could be cached. She finds nothing. Meanwhile, the little girl grows weaker by the day. She is obviously starving to death. But she refuses to eat--in fact, she has no interest in food, views it as something like a rock, which of course you wouldn't think of eating. She spends her days in prayer, reading, playing with religious cards, sewing, and going on short outings with Lib. Lib grows attached to the girl and becomes convinced that she's the only one who can save Anna. But how?
Donoghue gives the reader hints about the nature of Anna's refusal to eat and about who might be responsible. You know they're hints, but you're no more sure of how to interpret them than Lib is, especially if your mindset is more skeptical than religious. Though Lib condemns the Irish for being close-minded, she herself is close-minded because she doesn't see how religion frames the narrative of Anna's fast. As Anna continues to sink, Lib becomes frantic to find the answers she needs to save the child's life.
My only problem with the book is the romantic portion. Lib is a widow, and until late in the novel, we don't know her backstory. In some ways, the information is irrelevant, as it is too little too late. The other romantic subplot involves Lib and a reporter. Things are tidied up in that department just a bit too neatly. Overall, though, this is a tense, suspenseful novel that satisfies the hunger for a good mystery.
Un-put-downable This was just my kind of creepy (i.e. not terrifying but TOTALLY compelling and mysterious). - Becky, Collection Development