Book Review
Title: All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
Genre: Dark, Romance
Rating: 4.25 Stars
The novel opens in March 1975 from Amy’s perspective where she explains that her mother sister, Val ended up in prison and her cousin, Wavonna is coming to live with them. We soon learn that Wavonna aka Wavy is a strange child not eating in front of other, not speaking at all and sneaking out at all hours of the night. After a while Amy’s mother sends Wavy to live with their grandmother and she seems to get better but when Val is being released from prison, Wavy’s grandmother’s cancer has returned and she dies soon after so she returns to her mother’s car. We learn from Wavy that her mother is a meth addict and she also seems to have some form of OCD which is why Wavy doesn’t eat in front of people. Wavy now also has a younger brother Donal and the abuse they suffer is immense but Wavy even at her young age takes care of Donal. The man, Val calls Daddy, whether or not he is their real father, Liam seems to be a drug dealer and this is how Wavy meets Kellen. After Kellen wrecks his motorbike, Wavy calls Liam after Kellen tells her to, to get him help and she ends up making a friend in Kellen. He is the first to realise the conditions the children are living in and helps out by cleaning the house, changing and feeding Donal while Wavy is in school. He also gets them food and takes Wavy back and forth to school but from the synopsis I know Kellen and Wavy’s relationship becomes much more than friends or caretakers.
For the next five years until August 1980 we follow Wavy’s life through the perspectives of herself, friends and family and it isn’t nice. Wavy deals with physical, emotional and mental abuse from Val and Liam but her friendship with Kellen is amazing. Kellen isn’t just someone she can talk to, he is the first person in her life that really cares about her and it shows. More often than not, Kellen does the food shopping, he buys Wavy new clothes when she needs them and picks her up from school. As times passes Kellen doesn’t just see himself as a caretaker for Wavy and Donal but as Wavy’s friend as he is the only person she talks to and the only person who she allows to touch her and people are beginning to take notice of this but there is nothing going on between them. One night Kellen and Wavy lie out under the stars and she calls Kellen her boyfriend which makes him feel happy and when she says she loves him, he says it back. The worst thing to happen between them is that Kellen sleeps in Wavy’s bed one night when he sneaks her a present but their relationship is really heart-warming to witness. However, something bad might be on the horizon as Brenda, Wavy’s aunt is horrified to learn how old Kellen is in comparison to Wavy when she calls him her boyfriend.
By the time Wavy turns 12 in the early 1980’s, she and Kellen have a strong friendships that even Liam overlooks although Val still treats Kellen horribly even though he is doing everything she refuses to do for her daughter. Wavy turns up at Kellen’s place and spends the night there and she often goes out with Kellen to things like drag racing. However, they get harassed by the police after Kellen kicks the shit out a man’s car after he smacks Wavy for no reason and the police won’t let Wavy leave with him so he has to get a friend to pose as Val in order for them to leave together which angers Liam but Kellen is a pro at deflecting Liam’s anger away from him and Wavy. It is around this time that we see Wavy wishing she could be older so her relationship with Kellen wouldn’t look odd even though there is nothing more than friendships between. We do get the feeling that whatever is between them could easily progress into something more than friendship but it isn’t born out of sexual desire. Kellen and Wavy’s relationship is made out of loneliness and compassion which means for me even if it does transgress into something more sexual in nature it isn’t coming for a place of sexual desire for a child but a more natural progression of the relationship that would happen with anyone regardless of age.
By the time Wavy hits her teens, she is wanting her relationship to become more serious with Kellen and gets jealous of the other girls he spends time with. Kellen refuses to do this because he is older than her and does nothing more than kiss her and even these kisses are very caste in nature. However, when Wavy stops talking to him because of her jealousy he has his bike repainted and swears she is the only girl allowed on it and buy her a two thousand dollar engagement ring to prove he loves her which appeases Wavy. Despite this she does turn to one of Liam’s girlfriends, Sandy who explains makeup to her as well as explains what the pill is and how to show off her assets more in order to attract male attention specifically Kellen’s. Wavy has more freedom now than ever since her mother’s car accident, while Donal was in the car he wasn’t injured that badly while Val barely survived the crash. Afterwards, Liam moves Donal in with him and leaves Wavy to her own devices under Kellen’s care and I have the feeling that if Kellen wasn’t around she would have been left to fend for herself. Kellen’s boss makes an interesting point that he married his wife went she was only 14 and he was 26 but this was during the Second World War, but he does make the point that if they truly love each other then age doesn’t matter at all except to the world around them which seems to ease Kellen’s guilt a lot and through his perspective we learn that Wavy seems to be easing the suicidal tendencies that Kellen might have presented but he is still worried about what Kellen will do if Wavy decides she doesn’t love him or want to marry him when she is older.
We continue to watch the development of Wavy and Kellen’s relationship as he fills the role of lover with her and the role of father with Donal since no one else is there for them the way Kellen is. By the time she is 13, Wavy begins seeking out a more sexual relationship with Kellen despite him knowing it is wrong and Wavy being utterly clueless as to why they can’t have that kind of relationship. Kellen and Wavy do begin doing more sexual things with each other but as Wavy is still only a child she can’t keep her mouth shut about these things and this is what leads to what happens next. After spend a portion of the summer with her Aunt Brenda, Wavy wants to return home for her birthday to see Kellen and ends up jumping out of the car near the garage leaving Brenda to continue with dropping Donal off at the ranch since no one is home at the house. However, as they are heading home, Leslie tells her mother that Wavy is sleeping with Kellen although we don’t know this for sure beside what Wavy said and she immediately turns around planning on confronting her sister about it only to find both Val and Liam shot dead in the house and Donal missing. She grabs Butch and they head to the garage to find Kellen and Wavy in a compromising position that has Brenda making accusation of rape leading to Kellen being arrested and Liam’s drug operation being uncovered. Brenda does take Wavy for an exam but she flees to hospital knowing what the word rape means and understanding that Kellen didn’t do that to her and she hides in the carnival until nightfall. At this point they still haven’t found Donal despite his bare footprints being seen in his mother’s blood and Wavy is hiding from her aunt hoping nothing bad happens to Kellen. I have a feeling things are only going to get worse from here on out and I think like Forbidden this isn’t going to have a happy ending by any stretch of the imagination.
Despite Wavy’s best efforts, Kellen ends up pleading guilty and getting ten years in prison and during this time her relationship with her aunt turns sour. Brenda and her husband end up getting a divorce over Brenda being a control freak trying to get “justice” for Wavy without considering how she feels. This gets worse for Wavy and Sean proves that he and not Liam is Donal’s father and takes him away and they have contact through letters for a while but ultimately they lose touch despite Donal wanting to contact her. She also can’t contact Kellen because of the nature of his conviction but she still loves him. Throughout this time Wavy goes to and graduates from high school before going to college, during this time Kellen has had a few parole hearings which we denied because of Brenda and the only when she turns 18 she doesn’t attend either. I think this is because Brenda didn’t tell her about them while Kellen thinks it is because she has realised that he did an awful thing to her and she doesn’t want to know him anymore. Kellen is eventually granted parole after 5 years and ends up moving in with a woman in her 50’s named Beth and they begin a sexual relationship. The only way Kellen can be with Beth is if he is drunk and he has never forgotten about Wavy the same way she has never forgotten about him, keeping his bike, his picture and his ring close to her at all time despite her aunt trying to drive him away and destroy her feelings for him and I hope they get to meet again before the end of the novel as they deserve some closure after everything they have been through and I hope Wavy finds her brother too. Wavy is intelligent I’ll give her that and she is using everything to her advantage but Brenda is keeping information from her. If she had known about Kellen’s parole hearing when she turned 18 I am sure she would have gone to it and contradicted her aunt and vouched for Kellen.
The final 15 chapters were heart-breaking and wonderful all at the same time. Wavy learns of Kellen’s parole almost a year after the fact because her aunt kept it from her and she goes to visit him where they can finally be together. Only for Kellen to explain that due to the terms of his parole he can have no contact with her ever and this is a crushing blow to a fragile girl who has been clinging to the hope of seeing Kellen again. However, rather than giving up or accepting the situation like Kellen, Wavy fights for what she wants. She fights to have the terms of his parole changed and eventually it succeeds and the way she announces to everyone without words that she still wants Kellen and is going to extraordinary lengths for him was beautiful especially for the man himself who had no idea what was going on. Seeing the novel ends with Wavy and Kellen married and having tracked down Donal was amazing as it brings their family unit back together again and they can move forward together like they always planned to. I will admit the first half of the book was unbearably slow and hard to get through but it really sets the groundwork for Kellen’s relationship with both Wavy and Donal but the ending really made up for that. That being said I can see why people don’t like this book for the same reasons they dislike books like Lolita and Forbidden but I throughout enjoyed reading and can’t wait to see what else Greenwood writes in the future.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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