All The Ugly And Wonderful Things

By Bryn Greenwood

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Synopsis

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.

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Robin’s Review

Wow! Just fantastic! These are my first thoughts after finishing All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel. Part coming of age, part literary fiction, part romance genres, Bryn Greenwood’s story wholeheartedly captured my attention and saw me through to the last page!

The characters in All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel are some of the best I have ever encountered. Our female protagonist is not sexy or beautiful; no, Wavy is a wispy, resilient, strong-willed character with a strange eating disorder. The male lead is a giant Native American named Kellen who has a big temper and an even bigger heart. Their epic story is set among a diverse cast of characters and is told from more points of view than I can name.

From the beginning, I fell in love with the good and bad, the beautiful and the ugly parts of this story. In my opinion, Greenwood’s writing is crisp – it flows beautifully, and the characters are nicely developed over the pages of this story. You will find dark subject material covered in this novel, including violence, drugs and a taboo romantic relationship.

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel was definitely more expensive than I’m used to paying for an eBook, but in this case, I truly believe the price was worth the several hours of enjoyment I received from reading it! I’m giving Bryn Greenwood a 6-star rating for All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel, and it’s being added to my list of 2016 favorites!

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BRYN GREENWOOD is a fourth-generation Kansan and the daughter of a mostly reformed drug dealer. She is the author of the novels All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, Last Will, and Lie Lay Lain. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

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