Review: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

I recently read “Room” by Emma Donoghue and really liked it (review here). So when I saw this at my library I figured I would check it out. 

It is a story about an English nurse, Lib, in the late 19th century, who is sent to Ireland to be part of an investigation into a girl who claims to subsist on nothing. The girl, Anna, has apparently been living on air for four months, but in order for her doctor to establish it as a fact, a committee decides to send for two nurses to watch over the child for two weeks to see if she smuggles food somehow. 

Lib is certain she will quickly unravel this so-called mystery and reveal the girl as a sham, but she gets tangled up in the case in a way she never thought she would. 

I quite liked this book, but it wasn’t as compelling as “Room”. But I do think that one is hard to follow. We see things from Lib’s point of view and follow her personal ups and downs as the case proceeds. I think she was an interesting character to follow, as we get to see her development as she slowly starts to unravel things. I must say the first part of the book (more than half) was a bit slow, and then in the very last part things speed up and you find out the backstory to both Lib’s life and the reason Anna has decided to stop eating. So the pacing was a bit off for me, but the characters felt genuine. 

As I said I quite liked it and I gave it 3 stars out of 5 on Goodreads.