Here goes...
I have very mixed feelings about this book. I'm giving it 5 stars, and a spot on my all time favourites shelf, so clearly I loved it! However, there's definitely a few things I need to get off my chest alongside the ridiculous amount of praise it's about to receive.

To begin I just want to say how many times I was verging on tears throughout. Something about the clarity and beauty of Palacio's descriptions, the writing style itself, and Auggie's narrative tone in particular, really got to me. I heard so much of myself in a lot of his words, and so many small details from all POVs really hit close to home. Auggie's final precept for example is something I hold dear. As a former musician and performer, I still cry at the curtain call of any show I attend, simply from remembering the overwhelming feeling of accomplishment, adoration, and the shared emotional experience of those small moments. And for a book to hit that same chord in me... well I'm very impressed.

I loved the storyline. The writing flowed beautifully. The characters were a wonderful mix of realistic, engaging, and a little irritating. And the ending, for me, felt very well balanced.

It is definitely one of those books that I would hope everyone reads in their lifetime. It has a wonderful balance of realistic school life alongside a healthy dose of emotion, morality, and a little adventure too. It treats the child reader not as an infant who needs to have the hard hitting topics it describes dulled down, but rather as a serious audience, with themes open to be considered and safely explored. It also caters for the adult reader: in the subtle implied stories of those who surround Auggie, as well as that the events really do lend themselves to be viewed through the adult lense of hindsight and nostalgia.

Now for my niggles.

I spent the entire first part of the book on edge. I have read and watched far far far too much media about 'different' children, whatever their hurdles, written by an author with little to no experience of how it actually feels for their character, and usually based around how hard their differences are on the family/school/community of that child. I was pleasantly surprised that the book did not focus on this. I was a little worried by Via's POV section... but I think Palacio managed to skirt the boarder with a healthy dose of realism.

Either that, or I have found they are what is often referred to as 'inspiration porn'. The kind of book that is written for 'normal' people to marvel at just how hard it is to not be as normal as them, and how much these characters overcome! Now this is where I harbour some little upsets. This book, I would say, falls into this second category.

Especially the ending, which although I feel fits the book overall well, does feel like everyone except Auggie are bordering on patronising. The redeeming factor of this niggle however, is the brutal honestly from Auggie. At a point during the award ceremony, he straight up says that he feels the award is more for everyone else than himself. That they want to see him achieve, to prove to themselves that they've all done a good job at helping him fit in:

"...and you can't imagine what it would be like to be that person...only I know that in that person to other people, maybe to every single person in that whole auditorium...but hey, if they want to give me a medal for being me, that's okay. I'll take it."

It's this narrative of Auggie's, his humour and honesty with the world around him, that truly brings the book back to a 5 star for me. It's refreshing. And raises the big and honest questions of our society that the rest of the book feeds into.