All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things is a book I won't soon forget, and I was kind of surprised-everyone told me to just go into this story blind and not to read anything about it, so I did. This tells the story of 8 year old Wavy, and her friendship with a man named Kellan who is in his twenties, but it is so much more than that. Wavy lives with her crazy mother, and her father who cooks meth for a living, surrounded by his gang of thugs, and his girlfriends, even though he is married. When Wavy is 8, her mother has another baby, her brother Donal, and Wavy takes care of him-not her mother or her father. These children are not really looked after, Wavy is afraid of anyone's touch, and she never speaks. Wavy can talk, she chooses not to. Wavy's crazy mother has told her everything she puts in her mouth is filthy so Wavy is very small for her age. She hardly eats anything and only when no one is looking. Into this disaster comes Kellan one night when he wrecks his motorcycle after he saw Wavy coming out of the bushes and he thought she looked like an angel, he looked back and ruined his bike and got really messed up for about 6 months. He keeps thinking about the little girl who did not speak but saved his life, and he comes looking for her one night and they become fast friends. This is when Kellan starts taking care of Wavy and her brother, when he sees the parents are not even concerned about anything like food, clothes, shoes, going to school, but once Wavy starts getting older, the lines become blurred at times, as she develops feelings towards Kellan that she is too young to be thinking about, and he feels the same way about her. The way the author tells this story is amazing and it will make you feel sadness for these children, even for their mother, but especially for Kellan, who like Wavy was abused as he grew up, and this is the first time he is experiencing someone loving him! I do not want to say anything else except you should read this book. Watch how the scenes unfold and all the ugliness of the world seems to hit on this poor family, and at the same time some find love for the first time also. I gave this book 5***** stars and just want to thank the author Bryn Greenwood for this awesome read, and the skill she displayed writing it!

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things was my first read by Bryn Greenwood, and it absolutely won’t be my last. From the very first page, I knew this book was going to challenge me, and it did, in more ways than I expected. I will also add that I usually don't like too many other POV's while I read, but this one was done in a way that truly worked for me. They each were relevant, and I appreciated that they never went off course and lasted just a few pages. Well done!! This was a very hard book to read for more reasons than trying to keep the details of Kellen and Wavy's relationship straight in my mind. Seeing how Wavy's life would have been without him kept me on course. I appreciated that he wasn't the stereotypical MMC, muscle-bound and drop-dead gorgeous, the building of this flawed character made him seem more real for me. I just finished this book, and I know I will be thinking about how it actually made me feel for some time. I give major kudos to this author for writing this story, and I appreciated her explanations of her own life growing up and her deeper understanding of the actual relationship she was describing. This could not have been easy for her, and I can only imagine how much time she put into it. I sincerely enjoyed reading this book, as hard as it was, especially the world of drugs and how that affects so many in what they consider families, as I have no experience in any of that. My only issue was that it felt like it dragged out in some places, and I kept waiting for time to pass, and it seemed to crawl too many times. This book isn’t for everyone, and I wouldn’t recommend going in blind.. Anyone considering it should read up on the subject matter first. This isn’t a light read or a conventional love story. But if you go in prepared, you’ll find a deeply thought provoking and unforgettable experience.

Die Geschichte von Wavy und Kellen ist wirklich einzigartig, herzergreifend, überraschend, schockierend und fesselnd bis zur letzten Seite. Ich habe tatsächlich noch nichts Vergleichbares gelesen und lange nicht mehr so sehr bei einem Roman mitgefiebert. Immer wieder denkt man "Nein, bitte bitte lass das jetzt nicht passieren" und dann passiert es doch. Man muss echt auf alles gefasst sein und damit meine ich ein paar wirklich hässliche Dinge, für die die Beschreibung Drama eigentlich gar nicht ausreicht. Man wird bis in die Grundfesten erschüttert. In diesem Buch steckt so viel Schmerz und gleichzeitig Liebe, so viel Gefühl und Glück, dass man trotz kontroverser Themen Sympathie für die ausgefallenen und echt speziellen, doch dadurch gerade wahnsinnig realistischen Charaktere entwickeln muss. Gleichzeitig werden die eigenen Wertvorstellungen in Frage gestellt und man wird zum Nachdenken angeregt. Noch lange nachdem ich das Buch zu Ende gelesen hatte, ging mir die Geschichte nicht mehr aus dem Kopf. Fazit: Absolut lesenswert, ein Must-Read!

O livro tem uma narrativa interessante pela perspectiva de vários personagens. Mas o enredo se torna quase um livro de romance barato, qdo entra em detalhes sexuais do relacionamento dos personagens. E, o tema relacionado à pedofilia pode não agradar alguns leitores, pois a autora tenta justificar os atos de um adulto em relação à uma menina de 14 anos por causa de amor.

My first thoughts before opening this book was hmmn not sure this will be for me, then I started to understand and accept how this situation could come about in the way it did, does this make me weird or a freak... probably and I'm so not sorry, love love love this story! The writing is incredible, the emotions it stirs wow what a roller coaster.

I'm not sure if I have ever felt so many different emotions, so powerfully, when reading a book. Anger. Hatred. Overwhelming sadness. Indecision. I'm still not sure how I feel about this book and some of the things that happened. I just know that I have to get my thoughts out by writing this review. That rarely happens immediately after I finish a book. Sorry this review is long, I have a lot to say. I don't even know what to classify this book as. I can't say it's a beautiful love story. I can't, and I won't. It's raw. It's gritty. It's actually quite disturbing at times. And it's fascinating. It's fascinating because it will push the boundaries of everything you believe about love. About right and wrong. I'm just going to put this out there in case you didn't catch on from the blurb. This is a story of an abused, young girl, Wavy. She begins what is a very important friendship with an equally damaged and lonely, adult man, Kellen. Wavy is damaged from the abuse she has suffered, in so many ways. It's infuriating and heartbreaking to watch what she goes through. Kellen comes along and protects her. He takes care of her in all the ways her parents don't. Ultimately, that friendship turns to love. When she's still very underage. I'll just leave it at that. All I will say is that this story does span many years. By the time it's all said and done, Wavy is an adult. BRAVE. Wow. This book was brave. After finishing, I have so much to say but that word keeps coming back to me. To write a detailed story like this, with the abuse Wavy suffers, the life she's forced to live as a child is hard enough. But my god, to add that kind of “love story.” So BRAVE. I need to be clear, I don't think it's brave because readers will have some big epiphany that what happened should EVER be tolerated in our society. And I can't say this was a story that needed to be told to open the readers eyes, or to make them learn some important lesson. It's brave because it IS wrong. As humans, we know this is wrong. But the author made me believe that no matter how wrong, these two saved each other from a fate MUCH WORSE than what would have become of them had they not had each other. She made me ask questions I never thought I would ask myself. She made me answer those questions in a way that I never thought I could. Ever. And probably never will again. SMART. So smartly written. This is what made this story. The lack of cheap plot tricks to make the reader fall for Kellen was so brilliant. She never tried to make you fall in love with him or to find the “forbidden” angle sexy. It was never meant to be romantic or sexy. This book is told in multiple POV's from many different characters. From Wavy, Kellen, family, and friends. Those multiple POV's allowed the reader to feel angry. To feel heartbroken. To decide for yourself whether their relationship was right or wrong. The author never forced what she wanted you to feel down your throat. Crazy as it may seem, in the end, I felt okay with where these two ended up. A product of everything HORRIBLE they had ever been through, especially Wavy, they were able to give each other something that no one else could've ever given them. No one. And she made me believe that they both deserved to have that. How the author made me believe that, I have no idea. As a mother of a nine year old girl, I'm still baffled that she was able to do that. REAL. Despite all the madness, these characters felt very real to me. If you can make it far enough in the book, you will root for these characters to triumph over everything. It's just a matter of if you will root for them to do so together. Either way, I have no doubt that readers will feel very strongly, one way or another, about this book. Here's the thing, I can't say I loved how this book made me feel. What I can say is that is was brilliantly written. It made me feel so much. It made me ask so many questions. It is a book that I will continue to think about for a very long time. It deserves no less than five stars for that. It is NOT for everybody. I don't think everyone will be able to read this one. But, if you ever want to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, this is the book to do that with.

Excelente libro. Una historia que te envuelve, te hace pedazos el corazón y te lo vuelve a pegar.... una y otra vez.