A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It’s safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only … Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father’s thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.
By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy’s family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world. A powerful novel you won t soon forget, Bryn Greenwood’s All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all we know and believe about love.
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I absolutely LOVED this book. Were some of the topics hard to read, sure, but that’s part of why I loved it so much. I loved the raw honesty and the all so realistic nature of this book. I will read anything Bryn Greenwood writes now. I am a true fan!
This is one book you won’t soon forget.
Now that I have read the book, I can understand the controversy over this story. My opinion is that most negative comments are on the extreme side and some are even incorrect. I believe that most didn’t read the full story and can’t see it for what it is. Yes it is harsh, some elements may even balance a fine line of morality, but again people this is fiction. I have no doubts that similar situations happen in real life and it has always been my practice to not judge as each person’s story is different with individual circumstances.
This story is the unpleasant side of life, life unfiltered without the rose colored glasses. A life the fortunate can’t even imagine. But it also shows that even within the ugly there is beauty and hope and happiness. This story holds you victim and will manipulate your emotions. You become so invested in Wavy and Kellan’s story that you need them to find happiness.
This book is not for everyone as some of the reviews have shown. If you open these pages, open your mind and appreciate this story with all it’s ugly.
4.5* Constellation Stars!
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It was a very touching story.
As Einstein stated, Time is relative. Time doesn’t exist, only clocks exist. Time is a Theoretical Construct and a Social Construct by which we measure and organize and try to make sense of ourselves. Stuff happens, over time. Or, is it really that the past, present and future all are there at once? The past has already happened, but we perceive it in the future in front of us. Ms. Greenwood has written the most beautiful love story I have ever read. One that transcends Time. She forces us to consider the paradigm and self-constructed parameters by which we measure love. This book is not a typical romance, it is about the kind of love that reaches beyond the books metaphorical stars and into your soul. It’s a love that makes you whole. The quotes and metaphors are brilliant and, as I read them speak to the message of transcendent timelessness in the story:
“How numbers worked together to explain the stars. How Molecules made the world. All the ugly and wonderful things people had done in the last two thousand years.”
There is a brilliant passage where author Bryn Greenwood underscores what is undoubtedly inherited negative messaging of a supposedly well-intentioned mother. Observed by Wavy: “All that delicious food spoiled in Renee’s stomach. Mrs. Dale was as dangerous as Val. She might as well have put her fingers in Renee’s mouth and pulled the pie out. She might as well have shouted, ‘Don’t eat that! That’s dirty!”
And a charming sentence that to me relates again the fluidity of time and space: “I had the manual Underwood that Grandma taught me to type on. It was Army green and weighed almost thirteen pounds. It worked fine, and Grandma didn’t take up any more room in my heart than a floor takes up space in a house.”
Greenwood is flat out brilliant! Near the very end of the book – she proves again there is no measurable Time in the eternal. “That was how I felt, as I walked down the driveway to my car. I was moving forward into space, but I would never come home again.”
And this book will remain forever a cherished read, that I, for one, will never forget. Thank you, Bryn Greenwood. You are my hero.
well….that happened.
I’ve gone back and forth on how I really feel about this book. As far as the writing and the flow of the story, the characters, the changing perspectives…..the book—I would give this 4.5 stars. The book read quickly and pulled you along at a nice pace. Because the subject is what it is – I appreciated that I didn’t feel like I was supposed to feel any certain way. The story was told and I listened—-I didn’t feel like I should or shouldn’t agree or approve — just that I should read on. In fact, that’s the only reason I kept reading. I couldn’t get a proper read on just where exactly the author was going with this. Would there be a huge redeeming event that righted some of the wrong? Would this sick situation actually be written as a LOVE story? Was there some third thing that would happen and make all of this horror better? I didn’t know, so I allowed the story to pull me on.
….the 3 stars that I ended up with are generous when I factor in my personal feelings about the subject matter. B/c I could go on for days with my opinions and pick apart scene after scene of things that are – IMO – just tragic, I will spare you the rant and say only this. The author mentioned that she wanted to illustrate how blurred the line between right and wrong can be. I get that. I’m an accountant. I live in a world of black and white numbers–but there’s also gray. Areas where there is a little room for interpretation (or manipulation, choose your word). With that being said, some things are always black or white. Odd numbers are always odd. Even numbers are always even. CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS CHILDREN!!!!!! No matter the situation, the background, the tragedy—an 8 year old is an 8 year old!!! While my mind and emotions raged a battle inside my head in the confusion of this story, when the smoke settled I still came back to the fact that she was eight years old when they met. I understand it didn’t start as a sexual thing—but how? How could one take up a parental role to a child (really children) and care for them, feed them, keep them in proper clothing – and then have any sort of sexual feelings?? No. Not okay. No. Uh-uh. No way.
Kudos to the author, Bryn Greenwood. This book served it’s purpose. It didn’t just stir emotions—it threw them into a Cat 5 hurricane and left a path of wreckage along the way. This was an incredible story—but it was not a love story for me.
It was a beautiful tale of unusual love that broke the societal standards and really makes you think. Not good for those who are close minded or easily disturbed
Could not put this book down! A raw look inside of the heart of girl struggling to find good and hope in this world. Beautifully touching!
DISTURBLINGLY ADDICTIVE!