On the heels of his critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling debut novel, The Returned, Jason Mott delivers a spellbinding tale of love and sacrifice.
On an ordinary day, at an air show like that in any small town across the country, a plane crashes into a crowd of spectators. After the dust clears, a thirteen-year-old girl named Ava is found huddled beneath a pocket of rubble with her best friend, Wash. He is injured and bleeding, and when Ava places her hands over him, his wounds disappear.
Ava has an unusual gift: she can heal others of their physical ailments. Until the air show tragedy, her gift was a secret. Now the whole world knows, and suddenly people from all over the globe begin flocking to her small town, looking for healing and eager to catch a glimpse of The Miracle Child. But Ava’s unique ability comes at a great cost, and as she grows weaker with each healing, she soon finds herself having to decide just how much she’s willing to give up in order to save the ones she loves most.
Elegantly written, deeply intimate and emotionally astute, The Wonder of All Things is an unforgettable story and a poignant reminder of life’s extraordinary gifts.

My rating: 4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Roof Beam Reader TBR Pile Reading Challenge, #10 on the list I set for myself at the beginning of this year. I had seen this book featured in a lot of different places last year towards the end of the year and after reading the description of the book, I really wanted to give it a try. There were a lot of things going on in this book, and so many feels. Word gets out to the world that Ava can heal people almost as if by magic. People start flocking to the small town of Stone Temple, almost all of them wanting something from the girl who can perform these miracles. Ava can’t just heal people with no consequences though, and the more times she has to use her “powers” the worse her health deteriorates.
What amazes me is that even as people realize that helping people in this way makes Ava sick, they still expect her to use her gift to heal people. This astounded me. It was very thought-provoking, realizing that people in desperate situations expect a little girl to give up her health in order to save people she doesn’t know. It is overwhelmingly depressing at the same time thinking that there is so many things in the world that are unfair, like the little boy that the Reverend wanted Ava to heal in the book who was dying of brain cancer. To think of this little boy’s parents, if I were them yes I would demand that Ava do everything that she could to help my boy. But would I want her to hurt herself to help my family? I can’t honestly say what I would do in that situation. Its easy to claim that I would do the right thing but at the same time I would do anything possible to save my son.
I loved Ava’s character, and Wash’s too. Their friendship was pure and innocent and would’ve grown into something more at some point I’m sure. This story’s ending was a bit tragic to be honest but I found it both touching and moving. It was overwhelmingly emotional, I ended up crying for pretty much the whole last chapter. There were a lot of characters in this story, and I wouldn’t necessarily say they were good or bad people but most of them had their own agendas and they were just acting within that scope. Overall I thought this was a great story and was interesting and very moving.