Date: July 11, 2025
Author: Emma Donoghue
Title: The Wonder
Oh. My. Gosh. This is the one! What a thought-provoking idea! Although this particular story is fiction the contents were based on actual accounts of children going through deadly fasts between the 16th & 20th centuries.
Once the story started coming together, I believed this to read like someone taking religious beliefs to the extreme. It seemed that young Anna believed if she fasted and prayed hard enough, 33 times per day, this number stemmed from how old Jesus was at the time of his death, that she would be able to absolve her deceased elder brother of his mortal sins and cease his suffering in purgatory.
How this story evolved was there were 2 nurses hired, each for a fortnight, to take turns watching an 11-year-old girl that had invoked the curiosity of the world. Many a traveler appeared on their doorstep to acknowledge the wonder that was this little girl. A 4-month-long fast, her last intake of food being her first communion. She claimed to be surviving on ‘manna from heaven.’ It was nothing short of a miracle that she had survived that long of a fast.
The doctor and priest were so excited for this to be true they formed a committee to weed out the possibility of this being a hoax. However, is it possible the round the clock vigil was indeed impeding the secret feedings and in fact becoming the cause of the little girl to actually become emaciated (starved)?
How important is the truth? Was everyone so hell bent on proving this girl and her family to be lying cheat’s that they had instead brought on the little girl’s early demise?
All she wanted was to sacrifice herself to save her brother’s soul’s.