All the Ugly and Wonderful Things - book club discussion

[ufcasey]

I just wanted to thank everyone for joining in our book discussion!!!

For next month's book, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, do we want to keep the discussion on a Wednesday or maybe move it to a Friday so we can discuss it that day and over the weekend? Just a thought.

[rainbowchip]

Jan 27, 2017 10:11:31 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

Jan 27, 2017 8:51:04 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

Does anyone have thoughts about Wavy not eating in front of people and even eating out of the garbage when food was available in other places?
I didn't see a connection between her mom calling her dirty and her not eating.

I think her father or someone else made her do oral sex when she was younger and that's why she and her mother are so obsessed with her not putting "dirty" things in her mouth and why she feels uncomfortable eating in front of others. But why she eats out of the trash and steals food - I don't know? It seems like the whole intent was just to keep the people she was living with from knowing she was eating food, for some unknown reason. The not eating/not talking thing really bothered me in this book.

Oral sex is where I went too but that was never mentioned. So it that was the cause, it's interesting that it wasn't talked about in the book.

[aurora]

Jan 25, 2017 9:29:21 GMT -5 pandora89 said:

...

I agree, I don't understand how her aunt kept sending her back into that situation, she had to know there was something going on (regardless of the relationship with Kellan, Wavy's prents were completely unstable). I think she wanted to but didn't because she knew her husband would have not been happy with that? Her husband sucked, what an awful person.

I definitely think it was because of her husband and the fact that having Wavy around would make her own life so much more difficult (because he didn't want her). I agree that makes him a pretty horrible uncle.

[aurora]

Jan 25, 2017 10:16:13 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

...

So this story obviously could not have taken place in the present day. I wonder if back in the 70s and 80s, there wasn't as big of a push for child welfare.

Why do you say that? I think there are still a lot of children today who fall through the cracks.

[aurora]

Jan 25, 2017 11:27:39 GMT -5 travella said:

I agree that this was a difficult book to rate and read. It was interesting, but I felt dirty reading it and was glad when it was over and I didn't have to pick it back up.

I think all the characters in this book were messed up in some sense so that helped explain a lot of the whys for me that everyone else seemed to have. I didn't even like Wavy's teacher, the party scene ruined my opinion of her. I hated the Wavy/Kellen relationship. I didn't even like it once they were of age. I think a child going through that messed up of a relationship at such a young age would continue to have messed beliefs in relationships, so I didn't trust her mind set at the older age either. It didn't help that she didn't seem to grow up in the book. She still acted and looked like a child years later.

I did feel like Kellen was one of the only people to give her stability, which is sad, but the whole relationship was toxic to me and there was nothing that could fix it.

I definitely agree. That's not to say I didn't/don't feel a huge amount of sympathy for her, because her childhood sucked and Kellen was the only adult figure to consistently be there for her and obviously that had a huge impact on how she understood relationships. I know she thought she ended up with the best outcome for her, and I totally understood why should would talk to the judge why she did and explain about how she wanted her relationship to be considered real. I get all of that from her perspective.

None of it changes that she was sexually assaulted, and that Kellen was wrong.

[aurora]

Jan 25, 2017 15:42:34 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

...- If Wavy had met Kellen when she was 17 or older, would you feel completely different about their relationship?...

This is the easiest one of all! Yes, I would definitely have felt differently if they had met when she was at the age of consent. I mean, I still wouldn't have loved the idea of a 17-year-old dating a much older man, but there is a reason why it is legal for adults to have sex with each other and not with children.

Jan 25, 2017 15:42:34 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

...
- Why did Kellen initially feel such an attachment to Wavy? She was very young when he first met her in the field when he wiped out his bike. Was it originally just a feeling of wanting to protect a child or was it always something more than that?

I think the fact that Kellen initially felt such an attachment to Wavy was that he had also had a difficult childhood and had some growing up/processing to do himself.

[aurora]

Jan 27, 2017 10:13:33 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

I just wanted to thank everyone for joining in our book discussion!!!

For next month's book, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, do we want to keep the discussion on a Wednesday or maybe move it to a Friday so we can discuss it that day and over the weekend? Just a thought.

I think it's fine either way. Obviously I'm late to the party here but I'm assuming nobody is upset about me picking up the conversation again today.

[rainbowchip]

Jan 27, 2017 14:15:13 GMT -5 aurora said:

Jan 25, 2017 10:16:13 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

...

So this story obviously could not have taken place in the present day. I wonder if back in the 70s and 80s, there wasn't as big of a push for child welfare.

Why do you say that? I think there are still a lot of children today who fall through the cracks.

I don't disagree that kids fall through the cracks but today, things like mandatory reporting exist. I feel like the adults in this book would have reacted differently had it been >2000.

[monkeyfeet]

Thanks for organizing ufcasey! I'm good either way.

[pandora89]

ufcasey - No preference for me either.

[charlatti]

Jan 27, 2017 10:13:33 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

I just wanted to thank everyone for joining in our book discussion!!!

For next month's book, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, do we want to keep the discussion on a Wednesday or maybe move it to a Friday so we can discuss it that day and over the weekend? Just a thought.

In the past on this board, we've tried to have discussions stretch over a few days since it's such a slow board. People can jump in when they can without feeling like they missed it if they weren't here on the specific day. So maybe w/th/f or something like that? We did something a long time ago that I think was a specific week for discussion, but I could be remembering wrong.

[mrspez07]

Coming in late here...
I definitely felt weird when the relationship changed from fatherly to more sexual. I can only imagine as Wavy's hormones shifted she was drawn to him in a sexual way. A sexual relationship was the only type of relationship modeled by the women living on the farm. She hadn't seen what a father-daughter relationship should look like so hormones combined with no other healthy models made her feel the sexual step was the only one to take. I think Kellen knew that it wasn't quite right but was just as desparate to be loved that he justified it to himself. In prison, he was able to maybe gain perspective and distance to understand it wasn't appropriate but adult Wavy had him questioning everything again when she tracked him down. Their lives were so different and messed up for so long that I don't think either could have a "normal" future. I was not comfortable about the outcome but I also could see the writer tying it up and making a statement that it was ok in a non-traditional way and maybe we've got to find happiness where we can, even if it's against society norms. Still made me feel weird. I was glad they found happiness, but it felt weird to root for them to be together too.

[berrysweet]

Jan 25, 2017 17:41:40 GMT -5 aurora said:

I want to add that I don't actually regret reading it, as difficult as it was. I like books that make me wrestle.

This is sort of where I'm at too. I can't say that I *enjoyed* reading this book, but on the other hand, I feel like the fact that we're even discussing whether or not Wavy and Kellan's relationship was inappropriate is a testament to the nuanced writing of the book. It certainly made me wrestle with what I believe, and for me, that's more indicative of a good book than whether or not I actually enjoyed reading the book.

[ufcasey]

Jan 27, 2017 10:18:34 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

Jan 27, 2017 10:11:31 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

I think her father or someone else made her do oral sex when she was younger and that's why she and her mother are so obsessed with her not putting "dirty" things in her mouth and why she feels uncomfortable eating in front of others. But why she eats out of the trash and steals food - I don't know? It seems like the whole intent was just to keep the people she was living with from knowing she was eating food, for some unknown reason. The not eating/not talking thing really bothered me in this book.

Oral sex is where I went too but that was never mentioned. So it that was the cause, it's interesting that it wasn't talked about in the book.

I've wondered if perhaps it got edited out of the final book copy -like the editors said "this book already deals with drugs and borderline pedophilia, adding child rape to that just puts this over the top, you have to cut it". Just my personal theory. Otherwise Wavy's complete revulsion to eating in front of others, even when she is a grown adult, just can't reasonably be explained away by only her OCD mother. At least to me anyways.

[ufcasey]

Jan 28, 2017 9:36:20 GMT -5 charlatti said:

Jan 27, 2017 10:13:33 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

I just wanted to thank everyone for joining in our book discussion!!!

For next month's book, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, do we want to keep the discussion on a Wednesday or maybe move it to a Friday so we can discuss it that day and over the weekend? Just a thought.

In the past on this board, we've tried to have discussions stretch over a few days since it's such a slow board. People can jump in when they can without feeling like they missed it if they weren't here on the specific day. So maybe w/th/f or something like that? We did something a long time ago that I think was a specific week for discussion, but I could be remembering wrong.

Oooh good idea!!

[aurora]

Feb 2, 2017 9:51:34 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

Jan 27, 2017 10:18:34 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

Oral sex is where I went too but that was never mentioned. So it that was the cause, it's interesting that it wasn't talked about in the book.

I've wondered if perhaps it got edited out of the final book copy -like the editors said "this book already deals with drugs and borderline pedophilia, adding child rape to that just puts this over the top, you have to cut it". Just my personal theory. Otherwise Wavy's complete revulsion to eating in front of others, even when she is a grown adult, just can't reasonably be explained away by only her OCD mother. At least to me anyways.

I'm not an expert, and this is a reasonable assumption/argument, but isn't it true that people who are abused often look for ways to take back control in their lives that may not seem obviously connected? Not eating in front of others is one way she may feel like she can control her life, even if it's not immediately connected to sexual abuse (because she surely was emotionally abused if not more).

[litskispeciality]

I dont' think there's much more I can add. I agree that it was a good read, but certainly icky and dragged on a bit. I think the book got better as it went on, but I'm happy to be finished.

I'm so torn with the ending. Kellan and Wavy's relationship is so creepy. He knows even as an adult to leave her alone, yet they're married. Should I be happy because that's all she knows, or should I be creeped out because he's still what 20 years older than her? Plus she's still in college, but I guess 40 years ago that was more common?

I agree that sadly Kellan gave her more stability, and she pretty much only knew that life, but ugh. I was so happy she was able to go to college and get a new chance, I almost wish she just said I'm going to walk away from Kellan.

I was so angry with Brenda's husband too. I want to see where he's coming from, it's a HUGE responsiblity to take care of MORE children, esp with the issues they've faced, but just to say never mind I"m leaving?! I wonder if the kids were his sister's would he have been more open to caring for them?

There were too many characters. Thinking back why was the teacher at the party relevant? I don't think she came back up later on right?

[litskispeciality]

Jan 27, 2017 14:24:01 GMT -5 aurora said:

Jan 25, 2017 15:42:34 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

...- If Wavy had met Kellen when she was 17 or older, would you feel completely different about their relationship?...

This is the easiest one of all! Yes, I would definitely have felt differently if they had met when she was at the age of consent. I mean, I still wouldn't have loved the idea of a 17-year-old dating a much older man, but there is a reason why it is legal for adults to have sex with each other and not with children.


I also wonder if Wavy would have felt the same about him at 17? I guess part of me felt like she found a "father figure" in Kellan. Hopefully by 17 she would see he was *more* like her parents and friends, or found more of an attraction to boys her own age?


I was heart broken when the boy in Wavy's class (6th or 7th grade?) said he liked her and she wrote back about her finance. I'm glad Kellan tried to push her into relationships with boys her own age. To a small extent this shows he understood his relationship was wrong.

Jan 25, 2017 15:42:34 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

[rachelgreen]

Dang it. It just dawned on me that I totally spaced and didn't make it to the thread on time. I even finished the book in mid December lol. I'm nursing my little one and then crashing but I will come back soon and put my thoughts down. Spoiler alert: lots of dittos, haha.

[expectantsteelerfan]

I'm way late to the party on this one, but I was waiting on the book from the library and just finished. I'm apparently in the minority on two things. I didn't really think of Kellen as a pedophile. I could see why Brenda did, and I imagine if I was her I would have, but seeing things from Wavy's and Kellen's point of view, and keeping in mind that I became sexually active at 14 (albeit with other 14/15 year olds) and both of their histories, I got over the ickyness and was definitely pulling for them. It was hard/uncomfortable to read the graphicness of them together, but I think it added to the stark realistic tone of the book overall.
I also don't really think the only way to explain Wavy's issues were if her father had molested her. While I wouldn't rule it out, I feel like the one scene in the book where we hear about Liam reading to Wavy and Val freaking out and telling him to never touch her made it possible that it was just Val's psychosis and paranoia that made her that way.
I really couldn't sympathize with Val at all.
I also think that in the time period the book was set, communities like that existed where people looked the other way, and unfortunately in some areas I think they still do.

[Nonny]

Zombie thead!!! 

(I really thought I'd participated in the thread last year, but Goodreads tells me that I read the book in May 2017, and I guess I never came back to the thread and posted, just read it over).

In any case, I'm resurrecting this thread because I picked this book for my IRL book club, and we met over the weekend.  It was a really interesting discussion, and a rather large meeting, which surprised me.  I thought given the nature of this book that it would be smaller than usual.   We have 15 people, when normally we are around 10, although 4 people hadn't actually read the book.  Two of them because they hadn't gotten the book in time (one of whom took copious notes during the discussion to make her own reading guide) and both of them plan to read it; the 3rd person I'm not sure why she didn't read it; the 4th didn't read it because she knew enough about it that she found it too upsetting to read.

Of the 11 people who read it (including me) only 1 person actively disliked it, although everyone was incredibly uncomfortable with it, and waffled between, "I love this book while simultaneously hating it."  The person who actively disliked it, hated it because of what she found to be character stereotypes (Kellen the Native American with FAS, and Amy the outsider lesbian cousin) rather than the actual content of drug abuse and inappropriate sexual relationships.

The discussion mostly focused on how Kellen saved Wavy.  I realized after it was over that it never came up how Wavy protected Kellen too (insisting he start wearing a bike helmet, being influential in keeping him from attempting suicide).  

As host of this particular book club, you are charged with talking a little bit about the author and doing a little background research on the book, and here are somethings some of you might find interesting.

1)  This is semi-/pseudo- autobiographical for Bryn Greenwood.  She says she doesn't consider it autobiographical, but her father was a meth dealer and when she was 13 she dated much older men herself.

www.huffingtonpost.com/mara-white/bryn-greenwood-all-the-ug_b_11857790.html 

2)  She's published a dozen cut chapters from the book on her Newsletter archives. I read them this weekend and none of them indicate Wavy was ever molested by Liam, or had any sexual encounters with anyone other than Kellen.  My book group all thought Wavy's strange eating behavior had to do with Val's severe OCD and possible bipolar disorder, coupled with Val being jealous of Liam showing any attention to Wavy as a toddler -- there was a scene where Liam was reading to Wavy, and Val loses it on him.  These extra chapters include some of Brenda's POV, what happened to Donal when he was off with Sean, and just more of the story in general beyond where the book ends.

us12.campaign-archive.com/?u=bcc051c4b645c1f5e9d23d001&id=b8afd97eb4 

3)  In the same link above, there is also three parts of an Alternate Ending, which is apparently much darker.  I haven't had a chance to read this yet, but per her newsletter notes, when she was writing she had Kellen at a decision point with Wavy's teach (Miss Degrassi) and she forked her story with him making both decisions, and obviously only one could be published.  She has a sort of "read at your own risk" disclaimer on these.  When I found this alternate ending late last week, there were only two parts, so I suspect that there might even be more than 3 parts at some point.

4)  This book is probably even more uncomfortable and upsetting on re-read.  I wasn't particularly sympathetic to Aunt Brenda the first time through, but on re-read when I knew where the story was going and how it was all going to end, I really felt bad for her, because she saw the writing on the wall and she was actually trying really hard to do what she could for Wavy and she had zero support from her own asshole husband on the matter.  (Although after reading the extra chapters some of that sympathy went away, because at times she came off as being a bitch just to be a bitch.  I think it was the right call to remove all of her POV from the final product.)

[ufcasey]

I don't think I can read the extra content/alternate ending as this book really did just give me a squicky feeling. Though I will say that I read another book last month that reminded me a lot of this book - "Fearless"
by Lauren Gilley. Both books have a motorcyle gang thing going on, the two main characters meet when one of them is just a young girl and the other is a man, the relationship morphs into a romance eventually, and people understandably get upset. But that book wasn't gross/incestuous, and it had a lot more going for it, though it was too long (700+ pages!). But I liked it a LOT more. So just thought I would throw that out there.

[Nonny]

Feb 26, 2018 21:36:59 GMT -5 ufcasey said:

I don't think I can read the extra content/alternate ending as this book really did just give me a squicky feeling. Though I will say that I read another book last month that reminded me a lot of this book - "Fearless"
by Lauren Gilley. Both books have a motorcyle gang thing going on, the two main characters meet when one of them is just a young girl and the other is a man, the relationship morphs into a romance eventually, and people understandably get upset. But that book wasn't gross/incestuous, and it had a lot more going for it, though it was too long (700+ pages!). But I liked it a LOT more. So just thought I would throw that out there.

That's understandable. 

Although the extra content is less of the squicky sexual relationship, and just other background details.  Like, the first extra chapter is from the POV of Wavy's foster mom when she was a baby (which was incredibly heartbreaking, because her foster parents had her from birth to 10 months, and they absolutely doted on her and loved her until she went back to Val and Liam).  But the Donal chapters were hard to read, because Sean was incredibly abusive.  The "post-credits" chapters were interesting because it showed what kind of "parents" Wavy and Kellen were to Donal (Brenda was shocked they actually had some rules), and showed that Brenda was still in their life and trying to help out where she could.

I just finished the currently published alternate chapters last night, and it's dark, but it's less sexual (although in the alternate has some implications that Sean was trying to mess with Wavy, but it doesn't go into detail). 

If you are interested in my few sentence summary of the alternate version:

SPOILER: Click to show

Kellen started dating Lisa (the teacher) and stopped hanging out with Wavy, but after they broke up he hooked up with one of Liam's trashy girls and got addicted to meth, then he went to jail for ~6 months after almost beating a man to death at the drags (it went down different because they were there on a different night, so it was a different guy, different car).  At the moment he's off meth, but he beat the shit out of Sean when he found out he was trying to molest Wavy, and he ended up murdering a guy for Liam to make amends.  He's currently drinking rather heavily because of the murder.

Without Kellen around to keep Liam's creeps in line, Wav basically just makes herself scarce all the time because Neil was also trying to grope/assault her, which means she's spending less time with Donal.  Kellen also isn't around to act as a father figure to Donal, instead Donal's around Liam and Sean all the time. As a result, he's not going to school and he's not the sweet little kid he was, he's turned into a viscous little asshole, and he and Wavy fight (physically sometimes). 

Wavy enters a relationship with Danny, who is one of Liam's errand boys, who is also older than her, but only by maybe 5 years, and the two of them were getting ready to run away to Texas when Kellen came back and chases him off.  From the dates at the top of the chapters, Wavy should be 14 now, and she and Kellen are living together, but their relationship hasn't turned sexual, and Val and Liam are still alive.

[ufcasey]

Nonny - very interesting! Thanks for the alternate version recap!! I'm not sure which version I prefer, out of two bad choices haha. I mean, not every book has to have a happy ending but geez...

[Nonny]

ufcasey, so far I think I prefer the original version, but it's definitely interesting to read the alternate and I'm curious to see where it goes (although at the rate she's publishing the alternates, I'm guessing I won't know for awhile!). Plus as a wannabe writer it's interesting to see that Kellen led her into two very different directions with his choices to the point that she essentially wrote two books.

It also appeals to my love of choose your own adventure books. LOL!

[ssmjlm]

Nonny, thanks for resurrecting this thread. This book was one of my few 5* ones last year, but I missed this thread b/c I hadn't wandered over to this board.

I am going to check out the alternate endings, but I really loved the book as is. Having Lisa start and end the book was so powerful to me.

[Nonny]

Feb 28, 2018 16:19:32 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Nonny , thanks for resurrecting this thread. This book was one of my few 5* ones last year, but I missed this thread b/c I hadn't wandered over to this board.

I am going to check out the alternate endings, but I really loved the book as is. Having Lisa start and end the book was so powerful to me.

It's less of multiple alternate endings, and more like an entire second book being released a chunk at a time.  It appears her schedule is at the beginning of the month, because part 4 (another ~7 chapters) just got released today.