The story in this book seems to be an easy one to judge. There are some things that seem to be moral absolutes. And yet, somehow this book takes some of the most basic moral absolutes and makes them ambiguous. It takes the easy good guys and has them become at best misguided, at worst villains, by creating a story so backwards in its internal morals that it creates questions where previously there were answers. It presents a girl whose life is, from the start, horrific. Her parents are both abusive and violent – her mother is mentally ill as well as a drug addict and her father is a dealer. We meet Wayvona when she’s only six years old and already carrying such trauma that she barely ever talks, won’t be touched, and will not eat when she’s with other people. It’s easy to imagine the worst for her future, and in many ways that will be the case. But it underestimates the strength some people hold, and their ability to love despite having been hurt beyond belief by those they should have been protected by.
The specifics of what happen to Wayvona need to be experienced first-hand to be understood, but some of the worst things we can imagine happening to a child in the care of parents (who are themselves damaged beyond repair) are her lot in life. But she has the ability to stand firm in how she allows others to treat her short of force – even as a child. She is unflinching the the face of undeserved and unfair punishment. She is resourceful and capable well beyond her years. And she has a younger brother whose safety is, to her, paramount. She is able to survive and provide basic care to her brother largely without any adult supervision from the age of seven. But one night a man who she refers to as “the giant” crashes his motorcycle near Wayvona’s house and she is the only one who can help him. She saves his life by getting help from the one person she never voluntarily seeks out – her father. In doing so, the fates of the giant and the girl become irrevocably intertwined.
Despite all the pain and trauma visited upon Wayvona in this story – her betrayal by a mother who is too consumed by her own brain’s frailty and her addictions; a violent father who is unable to love; and an aunt who, in trying to protect Wayvona, brings her further pain and loss – she is capable of a love and loyalty that few are ever tested to discover within themselves. She makes a family out of people who have none, and refuses to give up on them. Regardless of whether that family is morally right or wrong, whether it should exist or not, it is, as she puts it, as real as any other.
This book made me deeply uncomfortable. There are things in this story that should not happen, ever. But when some of them have already occurred, life isn’t about to create a fairytale out of the aftermath. In this story, what happens next almost (almost) makes a cockeyed sort of sense, if you squint hard enough. I came out of it still uncomfortable, but also with questions I never thought I’d have. I read this over a month ago, and every time I think about it I still feel like my brain hurts. Of course my morals have not changed, but this story specifically maybe stands a little to the left. I don’t know – I’m still mulling it over. Point is, you should read this book – if only so I’m not the only one plagued by discomfort on a possibly permanent basis!
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 wont soon forget, Bryn Greenwood’s All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all we know and believe about love. – Goodreads
Book Title: All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Author: Bryn Greenwood
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook/Paperback
Published By: Thomas Dunne Books
Released: August 9, 2016
Genre: Fiction, Family, Trauma, Challenging
Pages: 432
Date Read: July 13-15, 2024
Rating: 8/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.00/5 (170,325 ratings)
