Books are essentially written to make people feel things. There are other reasons too, such as education and things like that, but for the most part, a novel’s purpose is to make the reader feel certain emotions. Romance novels make you feel sappy and loved, horror novels make you feel scared, dramas are meant to make you sad. But then there are the feel good books as I like to call them. Books that are light reads and that make you smile throughout. These books are very important because with all of the emotions humans experience going through their everyday lives, some people forget to simply just be happy.

Recently, I read a book that was one of the most feel good books I’ve ever read, and even better, it also taught a fantastic lesson. This book was Wonder by RJ Palacio. It follows the story of an eleven year old boy named August “Auggie” Pullman who has had a facial deformity since birth. He has had several surgeries to fix different problems that the deformities have caused, but he doesn’t look like everyone else. He is used to people staring at him everywhere he goes. His mom has homeschooled him his entire life, so he isn’t used to being in situations where he is surrounded by people who are not used to seeing him. But this all changes right before he starts the fifth grade. He overhears his parents arguing about whether to send him to real school this year, since it would be everyone’s first day at the school with it being the first day of middle school. Auggie is really reluctant at first, but after a school tour given by the principal, Mr. Tushman, and a few of the other students who would be in his class at school, he decides to go. Through all of the looks, comments, and rude actions pointed his direction, he makes it through and makes some really fantastic friends along the way. You will just have to read the book to find out more!

There were many things I really liked about this book. One of which being the fact that the story is split up into chunks, which are told by different characters point of view. This lets you get to know each character’s backstory and their motivations much better than if it was a solely first person novel. Another thing I really liked was the lightness of it. Though parts of it were kind of sad, I smiled a lot through this book. It really took me back to being in fifth grade and experiencing all of these things. I actually broke my personal rule for this book and watched the movie first, but I wasn’t disappointed while reading the book. I still experienced the story as if it were the first time I had heard it. I truly was sucked into the world of the students at Beecher Prep and the other people in Auggie’s circle.

I would really recommend this book. It was a pretty easy read and I absolutely loved it. And if you don’t like to read, I would highly recommend the movie as well. It was very well made and pretty close to the book. This book taught the extremely important lesson that even though someone may not look the same as you, that doesn’t mean anything about who they are as a person. Don’t judge a book by its cover. I would definitely give this book a 5/5.