In fact, the least uncomfortable passages in this book are the ones that are perhaps the most controversial: the touching scenes of tenderness and affection between Wavy and Kellen, who begin a more intimate relationship after Wavy enters adolescence. There are many things about it that are uncomfortable - namely, the child abuse suffered by Wavy and her younger brother at the hands of her unstable mother and self-absorbed father. All The Ugly and Wonderful Things by: Bryn Greenwood From there, All The Ugly and Wonderful Things found its home and its place on the shelf amongst 2016's most acclaimed literary fiction. In a stroke of luck, Greenwood's current literary agent approached her after reading one of her previously published novels. I just don't think I can sell it to anybody.'' A lot of people said, 'It's a really great book. 'At that point, it had been revised and polished. 'I had played with the idea of self-publishing,' Greenwood says.

She began from scratch, but after 122 agent rejections, she stopped querying her novel. She previously published two novels with an independent press, but by the time she was ready to query All The Ugly and Wonderful Things, her former literary agent had left the business. Greenwood, who began writing the novel in 2009, had a tough time selling the novel to agents as well. And other people haven't read it, and they disapprove of the basic concept.' 'A lot of people hate it because they read it and they don't in any way want to sympathize with the situation. 'A lot of people really hate it,' Bryn Greenwood tells Bustle. It's a novel that asks readers to step outside their comfort zones and step inside Wavy and Kellen's world without judgment. Greenwood's novel is about ugly things - mental illness, family discord, child abuse - and wonderful things, like the vast, healing powers of unconditional love and understanding. But that definition doesn't do justice to the breadth of this painful, beautiful novel about two lonely, lost people who find their place with each other.ĭespite the inevitable comparisons to Lolita, Greenwood's novel is not about pedophilia or the victimization of a young girl by an older man, and Kellen is not like Humbert Humbert. Simply described, All The Ugly and Wonderful Things is the story of how Wavy, the young daughter of a drug dealer and his abusive wife, and Kellen, a loner, drug runner, and ex-con, fall in love.

Wavy, a cherubic child with porcelain skin, doe eyes, and fair, golden hair, is just eight-years-old when her love story begins to unfold in Bryn Greenwood's haunting new novel, All The Ugly and Wonderful Things, out Aug.

All the wonderful ugly things