Review: All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I listened to this as an audio book. I felt as though the narrator was too monotone. Emotions were not well conveyed and this opinion may have skewed my rating. I simply couldn’t connect as well with the characters when their voices, while sounding different, all seemed to have the same tone/mood.

I do feel that I would have enjoyed the writing style more had I read this book myself. Having said this, I would not read it in print form because of the topic. I’m glad that I didn’t read this in print because it would have made me see certain scenes more vividly.

Having said that, the book itself is hard for me to rate. Do I focus on the fact that this book was well written or the fact that the main characters fell in love when the girl was 8 and the man was in his 20s?

So, first I’ll focus on the writing and the non-sexual aspects of the story line. The young girl, Wavy, has a troubled life. I won’t go into details, but I thought the book did a decent job to made the reader know what Wavy went through and why she was the way she was. I would have liked to have seen more of that. I kept waiting for a bigger tragic event in Wavy’s background… something to have really pushed her to become that person.

I would have liked more of a background about Kellen. There were a few different opinions of him from other characters, but not enough of a story to tell me why he thought what he was doing was okay. I got that Wavy was the only person to truly love him, but why? Why was that enough for him?

I can’t, however, get past the topic of this book. IT IS NEVER OKAY FOR A MAN TO TOUCH A LITTLE GIRL. I get that they were in love. I get most of the reasoning behind it. That doesn’t make it okay. Had the story been different and the characters waited until it was appropriate, I may have been okay with that. Maybe, not sure.

I can’t EVER recommend this book due to the fact that it puts the molestation of a child in a light the author meant to be beautiful.

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