If you have read Donoghue’s Room or seen the movie, you may have great expectations for this new book of hers.  I caution you: It’s different.  For one thing, it’s set in the mid-1800’s in rural Ireland.  For another, the scenario is not one that we immediately and automatically identify with, as it was in Room.

Donoghue does a masterful job capturing the time, the place, the local dialect.  She creates interesting characters, each of whom is multi-dimensional.  Her word choice is beyond fault.

I had trouble with the pacing.  This may be a case of the media being the message – that the author wanted the reader to feel the agonizing wait of “the watch.”  Then again, it may have been that I listened to the audiobook.  If you’ve read others of my recent reviews, you’ll know that I believe a good audiobook narrator adds a dimension to the story that wouldn’t otherwise be there.  The narrator of The Wonder … was … slow.  She spoke every … single … word in a plodding … way that may have added both a tedium … and … projected an attitude that the author did not intend.  Reading the physical book may be more worthwhile in this instance.