Good Reads  /  Community Library Notes
The Wonder
​​Emma Donoghue
Review by Priscilla Comen

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue is a serious study of a nurse, Lib (Elizabeth) Wright, trained under Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. Lib has been assigned now to “watch” an eleven year old girl of a small town in Ireland, who has not eaten any food in four months. Lib and a nun, sister Michael, are to verify that the girl indeed does not eat anything.  Her parents and doctor (and others) believe this is a miracle. They are very religious in this small community. Lib doesn’t believe in all the superstitions and constant prayers. She observes closely as Anna, the young girl, fades away.
            Lib meets a journalist, Byrne, who, on seeing Anna the first time, tells Lib the girl is dieing. Now Lib wants the doctor to call off the “watch” and to encourage Anna to eat. Anna may be grieving for her fifteen year old brother who died this past year, and whom Anna fears will not make it into heaven. She sings religious songs and plays with holy cards, leaving her bed only when Lib takes her for short nature walks. This Dublin-born author tugs at our heart strings with every page.
            Do Anna’s parents realize the danger she is in or the harm they are doing to their daughter by encouraging her to believe so strongly in the power of God? Can Lib save her before she starves to death? This author plumbs the depths of her imagination with the inspiration of a true story of “Fasting Girls” in the British Isles and elsewhere between the 16th and 20th centuries.
            When Byrne kisses Lib in the hall of their lodgings, Lib finds she likes it, and responds. Will Byrne advise Lib how to save Anna and help her to do it? Anna tells Lib her deepest secret about her brother and her. Lib comes to understand why Anna is anxious to send her brother to heaven, and to meet him there. This tense story is as tender as a love song, and can be found on the new fiction shelf of your community library.