BELIEVE the hype.

Excuse the state of my library copy! 

Wrote this last night:

I've just finished reading this - 5 minutes ago - and immediately felt I had to write about it.
You know when people GO ON AND ON about a book so much, that when you finally read it, yeah it's generally a good book but it's doomed to be somewhat disappointing because it can never live up to the success that surrounds it (BTW, this sort of happened with Looking For Alaska by John Green for me - it was great but I was naively expecting my life to be changed forevermore or something). It's undermined by its own well-deserved hype. What a paradox. 

Well.
This didn't happen with Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Not at all. A review by 'The Bookseller' states that 'it will make you laugh, cry and break your heart'. It's no lie. In many moments I laughed out loud, which doesn't happen with many books - little gems of humour peppered throughout, such as the unexpected Justin Bieber reference at the end, in amongst the list of great philosophers, explorers and artists. Fantastic.

With risk of sounding cliched, it really is an inspiring book that left me feeling hopeful after quite a bad day, and ready to face tomorrow as a brighter one. I'm still on a high from it in fact. I have a library copy, but maybe I'll get one for myself - just so I can flick through some of its wonderful snippets of universal wisdom when another bad day comes around. 

So, I'd just like to say: Believe the hype. It may or may not change your life. Hey, we all have different reading experiences and things that move us don't necessarily move others. You may not connect with this book at all, in fact.
But there's only one way to find out.

Danielle x

P.S. For those of you who have read it already, try The Julian Chapter,  a short e-book in the perspective of the school bully from Wonder, Julian.