Wonder Novel Study: JUSTIN ✨

"Describe a character or individual that you disliked OR admired in the written text. Explain how your feelings towards this character helped you understand the text as a whole."

What was an individual that you disliked or admired in the written text?... The character I chose for was Justin. Yet somehow, it wasn’t planned. It went more like how a piece of driftwood drifts through a rip… yeah, it was like that. I was attracted to Justin in the same way; his character intrigued me. He is merely an extra in the shot of the universe Wonder is set in, yet there is something about this individual that makes me admire, and wonder about Justin. Here’s why.

It is page 113 when we are told, from Via’s perspective, of her school’s reaction to the rare condition August has. “I don’t want to be defined that way,” she says, the final line of the paragraph she has spent explaining the whispers between stolen glances and the conversations thrown up into the air like forbidden pixie dust, that Via experiences. We can determine from this small yet profound phrase, that this is a fear Via may hold. The fear that she will be judged not by her personality, but the rare condition outlining the features on her brother’s face and neck. The scars littering his lips and nose. The slanted eyes and dare I say, ‘ugly appearance.’

It should be, by no surprise, a harsh surprise for Justin. The pretty girl he has fallen in love with, to hold such an enormous secret she devises to keep confidential. In fact, it is the third date when this secret comes out. However Justin does not react the way that would be expected of any of Via’s classmates. He accepts it. He lets it absorb his mind at times. ‘I’m not shocked,’ he lies, careful to reassure Via that everything is fine, because, it turns out to be. Justin revolves into a figure of surprising authority. It is at the subway that he stands up for August and Jack; bravely turning his attention to the boys that have been tormenting them. “Don’t mess with Jack,” he says slowly yet forcefully. His carefully woven words share a perspective of the reactions of older people outside of the Pullman family. What it is really like to have got to known August Pullman.

It is this that made me believe in Justin a lot more; to allow me to realise he is not just a single star in the Wonder universe.

Justin is a planet revolving around the sun.