All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

by Bryn Greenwood

Genre:  Fiction

Synopsis: 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 when her stargazing 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.

from the book jacket

Review:  Reading about the life that Wavy and Donal had was hard as they grew up with drug addict parents who didn't care about them at all.  Wavy clearly had so many emotional issues that could only be healed by a lot of therapy.  At first the relationship between Wavy and Kellen started off as very innocent and I love how much Kellen watched out for Wavy and how Wavy changed when she was with him.  But then the relationship got stranger and much less appropriate.  Clearly Wavy needed love and any type of love was OK with her.  She needed boundaries but Kellen got not give them to her.   As the book progressed it was harder and harder to read about their relationship.  I was disturbed by the end.  This book is somewhat graphic and vulgar.  Go into this book knowing that you will be torn by what you know is wrong but what may have been the best for a character.

Rating: 3 stars