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A review by pewter
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.0
The blurb on the jacket promises a thrilling mystery, but don't be fooled. While you read this book, you're going to feel like you're sitting shifts on your watch, just like the main character.
The main character Lib is intended to be relate-able and interesting - the author insists upon it by telling us over and over how interesting her life was, how scientific she thinks, and how much she hates the "primitive" religious folks around her. And I could probably get behind that for a while for a bit of character building, but a third of the way through the book and we're still on this? It might have landed better if the author wouldn't turn around and then repetitively give us moments where Lib would be very slow to catch onto conversations ("I realized later they were talking about..", "oh, they must have meant...") Give your readers some credit, please. Lib can't keep up, but I can.
So the main cast is dull; I expected there to be some turn-about where the crowd she sneers at might actually prove useful, but they don't change. So between the arrogant and sneering main character and the intensely, harmfully, backwardly religious supporting cast, who is there to root for? Nobody.
Surprise, if you skimmed the first half of the book you might have missed the over-saturated foreshadowing in every conversation about the main conflict, but I unfortunately invested with hopes that something extraordinary would happen. It did not, and the plot did exactly as expected. There IS a wrong way to do foreshadowing, and this is it. I won't even touch on the "maternal woman" trope that is dripping all over this novel.
This book is as thrilling as Lib's job watching a child not eat. A complete waste of time.
The main character Lib is intended to be relate-able and interesting - the author insists upon it by telling us over and over how interesting her life was, how scientific she thinks, and how much she hates the "primitive" religious folks around her. And I could probably get behind that for a while for a bit of character building, but a third of the way through the book and we're still on this? It might have landed better if the author wouldn't turn around and then repetitively give us moments where Lib would be very slow to catch onto conversations ("I realized later they were talking about..", "oh, they must have meant...") Give your readers some credit, please. Lib can't keep up, but I can.
So the main cast is dull; I expected there to be some turn-about where the crowd she sneers at might actually prove useful, but they don't change. So between the arrogant and sneering main character and the intensely, harmfully, backwardly religious supporting cast, who is there to root for? Nobody.
Surprise, if you skimmed the first half of the book you might have missed the over-saturated foreshadowing in every conversation about the main conflict, but I unfortunately invested with hopes that something extraordinary would happen. It did not, and the plot did exactly as expected. There IS a wrong way to do foreshadowing, and this is it. I won't even touch on the "maternal woman" trope that is dripping all over this novel.
This book is as thrilling as Lib's job watching a child not eat. A complete waste of time.