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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Beautiful and truly unforgettable. This is one that I will definitely be thinking about and recommending for a very long time.
I’ve written a review for this book before, but alas, ’tis gone.
I just remember that I loved this book and I still think of it from time to time, so it has a lasting impression.
Wow.
I have so many conflicting emotions but what I can say with one hundred percent conviction is that the writing is brilliant.
A lot of the subject matter is uncomfortable, taboo, and off-putting and throughout the book I felt my mind constantly at war with my heart.
But when it’s all said and done, these characters have been brought to life in such a way that they burrow deep into your soul. You want for nothing more than their happiness and success. To see them mended and made whole.
As beautiful as it is disturbing, this book is not for everyone. It’s a love story woven within a tapestry of drugs, neglect, and abuse. It pushes boundaries and makes one question their own moral limits.
I fell in love with Wavy and Kellen from page one!
At first I didn’t know what to except from this book.While reading this book my emotions was up and down Some parts of the book made mad and some parts made cry.I justed to save Wavy and Final and also Kellan it seemed they all went through a lot and noone cared what happened to them.This book isn’t for everyone but I’d suggest that you could try.
Maaan, I know this book is a little twisted with the whole age-gap thing but my God this is one of my favorite books.
5/5 Stars
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There is a lot of controversy surrounding this book and I understand why. This contains tough subject matter and will likely make you uncomfortable while also questioning yourself, your beliefs, and the characters of this book. ATUAWT will take you on an emotional rollercoaster; it will rip out your insides, just to put you back together so that it can to do it again. This book will attempt to blur the lines of right and wrong; it WILL make you feel all kinds of things, which is what I enjoyed about it. ATUAWT made me question myself and reflect on my own beliefs, not many things do that no a days. I sympathized with characters that I would normally never sympathize with, which was hard on me for at emotional level. Again, it’s part of what made this book so intriguing.
Did I love every situation, absolutely not. But I think that was the whole point of the book. The writing was impeccable! Very few authors can write a book from so many POV and pull it off the way that this author did. Those view points really brought an additional depth to the story and gave us a view of Wavy & Kellen from the outside world. This is one book that will linger with me, with that I have no doubt.
I read this book this month as part of a buddy read and I’m sure glad that I did. This will be a book that you’ll want to discuss with someone, that’s for sure! If you need to talk about your own feeling or want to know more about the triggers within, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
I am at a complete and utter loss for words. This book tore at my heart and shattered my soul as if nothing happened. My heart broke for Wavy, Kellen and Donald. This is such an amazing book I had bought it years ago but never got around to reading it so when I saw that this book was one of the audible escape books I just had to borrow it. I’m so glad I did because this is one of those books that you’re not going to be able to put down. And don’t even get me started on the narration because it completely blew my mind and made me feel like I was a third-party standing on the outside looking in.
I read this book a few years ago, but recently revisited it in audio format, and I must admit, I’d forgotten what a truly brilliant tale it is.
This isn’t a fluffy romance, far from it, but the story is beautifully told, by a cast of well developed characters. If you enjoy angst and high emotion in your books, then I can’t recommend this one enough.
I did something with this book that I have never done before – read it twice, back-to-back. Not because I didn’t understand or because I couldn’t get through it, but because it was SO FRICKING GOOD!! When I first started reading it, I thought “What’s all the hype about? It’s okay.” But as I became immersed in Wavy and Kellen’s story, I became addicted to what would happen. I was like a drug addict, I had to have more. My heart was pounding and I was terrified of what was going to become of them. Would Wavy get her happy ending?
Don’t kid yourself – the love between these two walks a thin line. As Bryn Greenwood states in her “A Note to Readers”, given Wavy and Kellen’s backgrounds and upbringing, what happens is understandable and mostly forgivable. Kellen was only loved by his mother, who has died. Wavy never had anyone love her before Kellen. It was a tragedy waiting to happen. Now, had Wavy been seven or eight, that’s another story. But as a teenager, she could be considered an appropriate age. It used to be common for girls of thirteen and fourteen to marry. And, be it right or wrong, both of their loves withstood the test of time. Neither faltered. Theirs was the truest form of love.
Maybe I’m just a sucker for what I call “real” love – the kind that is unconditional, where you can’t live without the other person, where they complete you in every way possible. That’s the kind of love I write about in my books, especially my newest one The Bounty Hunter.
What Kellen did was wrong. He should have waited until Wavy was older. But it’s not for me to judge who’s wrong or who’s right. I’m just glad they found each other.
There is only one word for this book, WOW. I don’t have enough words to describe how this book pulled me in right from the start and totally hooked me. I had a book hangover when I finished it! It’s an amazingly unique and well written, but completely unconventional love story. I’m not usually the the type for love stories but this one is so different from anything I’ve ever read before. Can’t recommend it enough
A fantastic read. The author has wonderfully written on a controversial topic.
This book left me so confused! I was so eager to share it with somebody, anybody just to get their reaction to the book.
On one hand I loved it. The settings, the characters, the story it self.
On the other hand, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, this is not right, this is child rape, this is sick.
Fast forward a few years and now I have a better understanding of how something like this could actually happen, especially in these days and times because I find myself in a situation with someone much younger than me.
We are both adults and our relationship is not a sexual relationship but a very close friendship forged due to circumstances beyond either one of us control.
Maybe I’ll write a book about it.
I couldn’t put this one down. The characters were so incredibly written and developed. At times, you will feel as if your heart is literally breaking, only to have it mended by the raw, real and beautiful relationship between two very different people.
All the twisted and powerful things.
I don’t know how this author convinced me that this book is romance. I don’t even know if it’s classified as such. I didn’t read the blurb or anything spoilers. I just know how I feel, conflicted. I honestly didn’t put this put this book down, I read it straight though, about six hours of things. Things we don’t like to talk about about, much less read about. This book will probably stay with me for a long time. A page turning, thought-provoking question. Is age just a number? Lines blurred, consent questioned, a long list of taboo topics could be discussed after reading this book.
A conflicting “love” story for sure!!
Amid the wreckage of their broken lives, Wavy and Kellen discover and share an unusual love that somehow survives despite all the ugly things trying to tear them apart. Skillfully told from sixteen different points of view, the compelling narrative gripped me from the very first paragraph and never let go. I doubt it ever will, because this is one of the best books I’ve ever read, hands down.
Wavy and Kellen’s unconventional love story will trigger strong emotions in many readers, but it’s worth every breath you’ll hold and every hour of sleep you’ll miss. Grab a copy, dive in and experience an unforgettable story of enduring love. Highly recommended!
I probably wouldn’t have read this if my daughter hadn’t brought it home, but I’m glad I did. However, I hesitate to recommend it because it’s not for everyone. It’s raw, it’s disturbing, it’s incredibly original, painfully realistic, and sometimes, surprisingly tender. And it is set in a world that most of us cannot even comprehend, even though it’s is a very real part of the world we live in. The dark part, that most of us want to pretend doesn’t exist. Wavy is a child when the book begins. She’s learned that not speaking is the best way to handle life with her meth dealer father, mom who suffers from mental illness, and baby brother whom she’s trying to care for and protect. It would take a five-page review to cover all that happens in this book, but at it’s heart is a relationship between Wavy and a much older man – one of her father’s drug thugs – that starts as a friendship when Wavy is a child, and morphs into a romance when she’s only 12. But I don’t believe the author is expecting readers to accept or approve of the relationship; I think she wants them to understand it, to realize the world is not black and white and there are many perspectives to consider. She does this through her amazing gift for character development and with insight from her own experience as the daughter of a drug dealer. I found it as disturbing as I did captivating, eye-opening, informative, and emotional. Extremely well written and impressive, but as I said, not for everyone.
??? Stars
I won’t be rating this book, because of the divisive and controversial content that has me questioning so many things and leaving me a bit conflicted. I will say, I absolutely loved the writing style and how this author used multi-pov’s to tell Kellen and Wavy’s story from primary characters in their lives to the fleeting. It was fascinating, thought-provoking, and often maddening. Although Kellen was a major player in this story, he also maintained a vagueness that helped propel the story and draw empathy. Was he as half-witted as many characters suggested or just misunderstood? Did his loneliness and connection with Wavy excuse their relationship? Bottom line, it’s fiction and any answers would be conjecture and subjective. For me, the story was compelling, uncomfortable, and sad. Although I enjoyed the ending, I still can’t personally reconcile all of my feelings from earlier in the book to the last page. Regardless of what the reader feels at the end of the story, the author aroused contemplation, discourse, and strong emotions. On those merits, I would say that she excelled with this novel.
I’ve had this book on my kindle for a while and kept putting it off for the same reason everybody else does: the subject matter isn’t for the faint of heart. Some might call it a romance, but no way jose would I call it that. While romance is a central theme, I didn’t find it romantic at all. Nor was I emotionally invested in the characters like I usually am when I read romance. And, thank god, because if I were, I’d have had to walk away.
I was, however, fully invested in the story. Wavy’s life is tragic, and I was fascinated reading about it. “All the Ugly and Wonderful Things” is an epic, dark, coming-of-age novel that made my heart pound and my skin crawl, and in the end, my cheeks hurt from smiling.
I don’t recommend going in blind, and if you have triggers, tread carefully. The blurb isn’t very forthcoming, so read between the lines.
** spoiler alert ** This book is a rough read. To read this book, you have to keep an open mind. The story has so many triggers but it was beautifully written. Wavy’s homelife was so messed up that this was the lesser of two evils. It was messed up that I was rooting for a “pedophile” to get the girl, but in all honesty I’m not sure I saw him as such a bad guy. There are so many grey areas in this book. Fine lines between right and wrong. The love between these two was real. Kellen struggles so much with his feelings and I don’t see him as a complete creep. I loved that Bryn was able to make me see a different side of the story, and not only see it, but appreciate it.