Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Published 2012 · 448 pages · 73,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Children's Literature, Literary Fiction
How hard is Wonder to read?
Wonder scores 16 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 15 out of 100
- Age-appropriate vocabulary. Transparent and accessible.
- Sentence structure: 15 out of 100
- Abstraction: 18 out of 100
- Concrete social situations conveying moral complexity.
- Information density: 25 out of 100
- Emotionally dense but narratively straightforward.
- Narrative indirection: 20 out of 100
- Multiple rotating narrators reveal different angles on events.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Auggie's face as unavoidable marker of difference.
- Ironic distance: 80 out of 100
- Earnest and direct. No distance from characters' emotions.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Auggie's year ends with acceptance. Emotionally resolved.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Six narrators across eight parts. Polyphonic structure.
How Wonder is regarded
Wonder holds a literary regard score of 34 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.