All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read this book in two sittings. Technically, I started it back in the winter for my Book Club but I didn’t finish it in time and didn’t return to it until a few weeks ago. At that point, I was about 60% done.
When I picked it back up again, I was a little discombobulated, not sure what at happened in the story (and it was a major happening) so I quickly got reoriented. I mention all this because it may cloud my review, reading a book as this in two disjointed sittings so people should be aware.
This was a difficult book to read. Not in the sense that the language was difficult but instead in the sense that the subject matter is difficult. It’s the story of a girl and how she’s raised by a meth-addict mother, meth-dealer father, loving but aging grandmother, harried aunt and a biker with a violent past all at different points of her life. These people come in varying and disturbing ways, with relationships that will be strange and upsetting at best.
I also felt that the first 50% of the book or so dragged a bit and took up very little time in her life while the last half seemed to span about 10 years, very quickly with much glossing over and raising some incredulity in my mind. The other part that I wasn’t crazy about was the jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint, some who were major characters and others that appeared once and were gone. I’m just not a fan of that style of writing. I like continuity. I also liked the heroine, Wavy, for all her oddities and the difficulties she endured, she was a strong and capable person and I would have just as soon stayed in her mind.
That’s why it’s only getting three stars from me (I Liked It) as opposed to 4.
By the way, I wrote this review using GoodReads review function and copying and pasting it back to my blog. I was curious about that functionality and not sure how I like it but I felt it worth it for this experiment.