Palacio concedes that – if pushed – she would identify Auggie’s dominant anomaly as Treacher-Collins syndrome, with a cleft lip/palate, and numerous “medical mysteries” as described in the book. Just like me, Auggie had to learn to keep his tongue inside his mouth. How will I now read and receive what was the most personally representative book of my life? afterįor starters, Auggie doesn’t have an underbite in fact, he’s described as having the opposite, though his pronounced overbite does present similar difficulties with eating. In the time since I first read Wonder, my understanding of my disfigurement, and the world it occupies, has transformed. I’d discover that I’m not the comfortably cisgender boy I thought I was, the boy I thought I saw reflected in Auggie Pullman. And I would be reminded that many disabled, disfigured people don’t have the support system Auggie and I have, aren’t able to access the necessary healthcare, aren’t so safely white (or read as such). I knew the importance of owning one’s own story then, but that conviction only grew in the following years. This was astounding to me that someone who, in the end, could never know what it’s actually like seemed to have gotten it so “right.” All this, written by a woman with no direct experience of disfigurement. A character who would know what it’s 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. I was thrilled that Auggie even had the same favourite films as I did.Īnd 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.
I felt my school anxiety, and the warmth of a small knot of friends, and the embarrassment of targeted bullying. I saw my loving middle-class family, and the sibling who felt both isolated and penned-in by the fallout of my condition.
I originally listened to Wonder on Audible, within months of publication, and despite the transatlantic divide, I saw myself vividly in ten-year-old August Pullman. It must also reflect that I’ve changed, and that my view of myself and the world around me has changed, since I first experienced Wonder. Palacio’s 2012 book Wonder by a Disfigured person (my chosen ID and capitalisation), it won’t – and can’t – be reflective only of my proximity to the story. I’m writing this preamble before I re-read the book I’m about to review.
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