All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel
Aug 2016 · Macmillan
4.5star
108 reviewsreport
Ebook
352
Pages
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About this ebook
- A New York Times and USA Today bestseller
- Book of the Month Club 2016 Book of the Year
- Second Place Goodreads Best Fiction of 2016
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 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.
31 Books Bringing the Heat this Summer —Bustle
Top Ten Hottest Reads of 2016 —New York Daily News
Best Books of 2016 —St. Louis Post Dispatch
- Book of the Month Club 2016 Book of the Year
- Second Place Goodreads Best Fiction of 2016
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 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.
31 Books Bringing the Heat this Summer —Bustle
Top Ten Hottest Reads of 2016 —New York Daily News
Best Books of 2016 —St. Louis Post Dispatch
Ratings and reviews
4.5
108 reviews
The Kentucky Liberal
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October 23, 2016
I really liked this book. This was a difficult subject to tackle, but the author handled it in a very tasteful way. I look forward to reading more from this author. I wish we could do a follow up to these characters set in present day. I really enjoyed Wavy's character.
1 person found this review helpful
Katrina Weaver (Kat)
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September 5, 2018
Very well written. No overarching message, in favor of or against. Uncomfortably detailed, graphic. Only vulgar in the development of the backbone of the story, not in the events between the main characters. I think the matter was handled with frank realism in a way that I can appreciate, even if I don't approve in reality.
1 person found this review helpful
Cassie Buchner
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July 11, 2017
Just like the title, this book makes you feel all the ugly and wonderful things. It's a dramatic, heartbreaking, and touching love story--both romantic love and familial love. The narrator changes from chapter to chapter, which is a great touch. However (and this is probably my only criticism for the whole book), sometimes the chapters are written in first person and other times in third which I found a little random. All in all, great book!
13 people found this review helpful
About the author
Bryn Greenwood is a fourth-generation Kansan, and the daughter of a mostly reformed drug dealer. She earned an MA from Kansas State University and continues to work in academia as an administrator. She is the author of Last Will and All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Chiron Review, Kansas Quarterly, Karamu, and The Battered Suitcase. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
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