{"id":4178,"date":"2018-01-19T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T09:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/?p=4178"},"modified":"2020-12-10T08:47:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T08:47:47","slug":"review-wonder-by-r-j-palacio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2018\/01\/19\/review-wonder-by-r-j-palacio\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Wonder<\/i> by R.J. Palacio"},"content":{"rendered":"
Before<\/h5>\n

I\u2019m writing this preamble before<\/em> I re-read the book I\u2019m about to review. As much as this is a review of R.J. Palacio\u2019s 2012 book Wonder<\/a><\/em> by a Disfigured person (my chosen ID and capitalisation), it won\u2019t \u2013 and can\u2019t \u2013 be reflective only of my proximity to the story. It must also reflect that I\u2019ve changed, and that my view of myself and the world around me has changed, since I first experienced Wonder<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I originally listened to Wonder <\/em>on Audible, within months of publication, and despite the transatlantic divide, I saw myself vividly in ten-year-old August Pullman. I saw my loving middle-class family, and the sibling who felt both isolated and penned-in by the fallout of my condition. I felt my school anxiety, and the warmth of a small knot of friends, and the embarrassment of targeted bullying. I was thrilled that Auggie even had the same favourite films as I did.<\/p>\n

And all of this was shown through the lens of disfigurement, through the eyes of a boy (in the chapters narrated by Auggie) whose eyelids were perhaps sewn at the margins just like mine, who might have my underbite. A character who would know what it\u2019s like to put effort into speaking clearly every time you meet a new person, in case they think the movement of your lips equals your intelligence. All this, written by a woman with no direct experience of disfigurement. This was astounding to me; that someone who, in the end, could never know what it\u2019s actually like<\/em> seemed to have gotten it so \u201cright.\u201d<\/p>\n

I knew the importance of owning one\u2019s own story then, but that conviction only grew in the following years. And I would be reminded that many disabled, disfigured people don\u2019t have the support system Auggie and I have, aren\u2019t able to access the necessary healthcare, aren\u2019t so safely white (or read as such). I\u2019d discover that I\u2019m not the comfortably cisgender boy I thought I was, the boy I thought I saw reflected in Auggie Pullman. In the time since I first read Wonder<\/em>, my understanding of my disfigurement, and the world it occupies, has transformed. How will I now read and receive what was the most personally representative book of my life?<\/p>\n

After<\/h5>\n

\"Cover<\/a>\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>For starters, Auggie doesn\u2019t have an underbite; in fact, he\u2019s described as having the opposite, though his pronounced overbite does present similar difficulties with eating. Just like me, Auggie had to learn to keep his tongue inside his mouth.<\/p>\n

On her website<\/a>, author R.J. Palacio concedes that \u2013 if pushed \u2013 she would identify Auggie\u2019s dominant anomaly as Treacher-Collins syndrome, with a cleft lip\/palate, and numerous \u201cmedical mysteries\u201d as described in the book. It\u2019s these mysteries that rang the first small alarm bells upon re-reading; they seem only to be there to justify the title (inspired by a Natalie Merchant song<\/a>) and aren\u2019t described in detail. The 2017 film has confirmed Auggie\u2019s Treacher-Collins, but Palacio\u2019s woolliness on specifying the condition has always seemed weird to me.<\/p>\n

Auggie\u2019s sister Via has an interest in genetics, and wants to go into the field to help future Auggies. Whether \u201chelp\u201d means improving quality of life or totally preventing Treacher-Collins is an important distinction, one which is unfortunately left unclear. In a culture where genetic conditions are so often seen as problems to be solved by what amount to eugenicist \u201ccures,\u201d that clarity would be useful. But Via\u2019s future intent remains a mystery, as do those aspects of Auggie\u2019s condition previously described.<\/p>\n

Besides August\u2019s condition, Wonder <\/em>is a very beige, cisheteronormative, upper-middle-class and surprisingly abled book. Throughout, August is defined as \u201cnot disabled.\u201d He may look different \u2013 horrifically so to some \u2013 but as the book keeps insisting, deep down he has the same abilities as his family and friends. When a concerned mother writes to the director of Beecher Prep\u2019s middle school, questioning Auggie\u2019s fast-tracked admittance, the director shuts down her talk of the boy\u2019s \u201cspecial needs.\u201d This moment is admittedly framed by good intentions, with Beecher\u2019s director defending Auggie\u2019s place at the school against a busybody, but when the disabilities of Auggie\u2019s disfigurement are downplayed through the book, it certainly rubbed me a little wrong.<\/p>\n

This seems like a missed opportunity, especially as August is the only visible disfigured\/disabled character in the book \u2013 which, to me, is sad. Auggie has only abled, \u201cnormal\u201d people around him; nobody alike to share experiences with, no mentor (or peer) with whom to explore what it means to be disfigured, or to discuss whether disfigurement is a disability. (I believe it is, per the social model<\/a>.) Via\u2019s boyfriend confides in the reader about his own nervous tics, but he doesn\u2019t describe their origin, nor does he share any real page-time with August.<\/p>\n

There are some issues beyond this as well. To borrow and bastardise Via\u2019s solar system metaphor, they gravitate around the good intentions of the author. It\u2019s necessary here to restate that R.J. Palacio doesn\u2019t have direct experience with disfigurement; as far as anyone has been made aware through interviews, no one in her immediate family or peer group is disfigured. Rather, Palacio reports<\/a> that the impetus to write Wonder <\/em>came from an incident in which her young son reacted poorly to seeing a disfigured child. After removing her children from the situation immediately, Palacio retrospectively wished that she could have instead utilised the moment to teach \u2013<\/p>\n

[Hello, it\u2019s those alarm bells again]<\/p>\n

\u2013 perhaps engaging with the disfigured child. The spectre of the unpaid educational labour disabled people are expected to provide to abled allies rears its head.<\/p>\n

And the question of how allies treat the marginalized is present throughout the most problematic narrative thread in Wonder<\/em>.  Since August\u2019s birth, Via has dealt with the fallout of his needs, and become independent while Auggie is forever fussed over. At the same time, she puzzles over another kind of independence, from her estranged best friend Miranda, who herself has been almost another sister to Auggie. When Miranda\u2019s point-of-view chapters arrive, Auggie\u2019s true place between her and Via becomes apparent.<\/p>\n

Around new friends at summer camp, Miranda talks about August as if he were her own brother in order to garner sympathy and the resultant social capital. Meanwhile, Via rejects the definition of \u201csister of a kid with a birth defect\u201d that Miranda so readily exploits.<\/p>\n

All comes to a head when Via and Miranda\u2019s school puts on a play. When cast as Miranda\u2019s understudy, Via refuses to tell her parents, in a bid to keep August away from the one part of her life he doesn\u2019t impact. After a change of heart and circumstances, the Pullman parents and Auggie do end up attending the play. When she sees this, Miranda makes the last-minute decision to feign illness, allowing Via the opportunity to take the limelight, thus engineering Via\u2019s reconciliation with her brother. Honourable, though not necessarily intentional. And what if August had known the full extent of how both Miranda and Via used and viewed him? I think he\u2019d be well within his rights to feel significantly hurt, and to not forgive as easily as he does throughout the rest of the book.<\/p>\n

Because, however hurt Auggie may be by someone, he almost always seems willing to shrug it off. More than once, a character who has done Auggie wrong will assume forgiveness, perhaps after a traumatic event has brought them back together, or laughter has thawed the ice. And each time, Auggie is quick to agree and move on. Perhaps the authorial justification is that Auggie doesn\u2019t like dwelling on things. That\u2019s fair enough, but it does telegraph something of a lack of agency.<\/p>\n

Once noticed, this lack of agency is a glaring issue. Stuff happens to<\/em> Auggie; we see him make choices to be more independent, when circumstances call for it, but his most significant fulfilment of agency is to shut out a friend. (This is also the one time when he doesn\u2019t immediately forgive.) Active, positive actions aren\u2019t Auggie\u2019s to take. Plenty happens<\/em> to him that is positive \u2013 he makes friends, he earns respect, he experiences a \u201cseismic shift\u201d in his social standing following a climactic incident at camp \u2013 but it is rarely his decision or intended action which causes it.<\/p>\n

There are things that make me sad about Wonder.<\/em> I wish these opportunities had been recognised and utilized. Auggie\u2019s lack of real agency. The fact that Via and Miranda never truly examine their own actions, and how they treat their brother\/\u201cbrother.\u201d The marginalised identities which could have enriched the story, but instead will have to wait for the next kidlit book about disfigurement \u2013 and when will that be?<\/p>\n

There are also things I find suspect or distasteful, such as the book\u2019s meta-campaign \u201cChoose Kind,\u201d inspired by the monthly precepts (inspirational phrases) Auggie\u2019s English teacher hands out. There\u2019s anger in Wonder<\/em>, mostly borne of pre-teen moodiness, but what does the edict \u201cwhen given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind\u201d do, except stifle the valid and necessary anger of oppressed people?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as if R.J. Palacio is utterly unaware of power dynamics; she chose not to give bully Julian a narrative section in Wonder <\/em>to avoid \u201c[giving] a bully a platform\u201d (although she would later go on to write a short story<\/a> from Julian\u2019s perspective). She has also said that she most relates to the character of Charlotte, \u201ca good girl, but she\u2019s not quite brave enough to act on her good instincts.\u201d (Both of these insights come from the very informative FAQ page<\/a> on Palacio\u2019s Wonder <\/em>website.)<\/p>\n

I think what makes me saddest is the fact that Palacio didn\u2019t have direct knowledge to draw from, due to the lack of a significant disfigured person in her life.<\/p>\n

Moving beyond the disfigurement representation, it\u2019s important to note that the Pullmans are a (likely) white, reasonably well-off family, living in \u201ca brick townhouse in North River Heights, the hippie-stroller capital of upper-upper<\/em> Manhattan.\u201d Outside the text, Palacio does concede<\/a> that Auggie\u2019s father probably \u201c[works] long hours to try and pay for all the medical bills not covered by insurance,\u201d but the fact that no such bills are agonised over within Wonder <\/em>suggests a fairly easy life. Beecher Prep, by its nature, is attended mostly by students like the Pullmans, whose parents can afford the tuition fees. August has a friend who is probably one of the few exceptions, but it\u2019s never explicitly clear.<\/p>\n

And this world seems unconcerned, at best, with race. There are several students with names that suggest they\u2019re kids of colour, but none of their identities are touched upon. More promising are the nods to Isabel Pullman\u2019s Brazilian heritage \u2013 August is clearly named after her father, Agosto, and her parents\u2019 travels are described \u2013 but hopes that it\u2019s a mixed-race family are dashed when August visits the home of his friend Summer. On seeing a photo of her late father (whose ethnicity is left unclear), Summer confirms her own mixed heritage, and there\u2019s certainly no sense of kinship from Auggie.<\/p>\n

For a book published so recently, set in New York City, it is also sad \u2013 and somewhat surprising \u2013 that there are no nods to LGBTQIA identities. The one (upsetting) exception is a character\u2019s use of \u201cyour boyfriend\u201d as a pejorative against an antagonist late in the story.<\/p>\n

For all the neglected intersections of identity mourned above, Wonder <\/em>remains an engaging, enjoyable book. R.J. Palacio\u2019s ten-year-old voices are consistently believable, as are those of her slightly older narrators. The journey of the narrative is satisfying; every major character learns something important about themselves and the world they inhabit.<\/p>\n

I still love Wonder<\/em>, about as much as I did when I first read it. I just want it to be better, so I can evangelise it everywhere, like I used to. Because despite its flaws, Wonder <\/em>is an engaging, heart-rending story about disfigurement, and the world needs those books.<\/p>\n

\n

\"The<\/a>Since I began to draft this review, Wonder <\/em>has found renewed prominence, with the late 2017 release of the film adaptation. This is just an addendum, and I value my mental health at the beginning of 2018 too highly to go into too much detail; the film upsets me a lot more than the book does (and I still haven\u2019t seen it), mostly due to the fact that Auggie was cast with a non-disfigured actor.<\/p>\n

Perhaps when\/if I do see Wonder <\/em>the film, I\u2019ll write more about it, but for now, you can easily find Twitter threads I\u2019ve made on the subject. More importantly, I want to link to a couple of pieces by others with facial disfigurements\/visible differences. First, from American writer Ariel Henley, this article on how the film exploits facial difference<\/a>, and an Atlantic<\/em> review of the film<\/a>, also from Ariel. Finally, I want to share this exhaustive master-post from Australian writer Carly Findlay<\/a> which covers pretty much every angle of concern about the film.<\/p>\n

Thank you for reading these pieces and mine, and I hope that you\u2019ll remember to prioritise and support voices of disfigurement\/visible difference, when our lives and livelihoods get thrust into the spotlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the time since I first read Wonder<\/i>, my understanding of my disfigurement, and the world it occupies, has transformed. How will I now read and receive what was the most personally representative book of my life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":2991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[527,62,522],"tags":[327],"genre":[5],"age_category":[6],"disability":[328],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4178"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7104,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178\/revisions\/7104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4178"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=4178"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=4178"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=4178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}