What a difficult book to review. It began promising and was very well written but ultimately I could not get over the inappropriate and overly sexual relationship between a child and a very grown man. Although the book tried to justify their "love", I couldn't buy it and found therefore that the whole premise of the novel was sick. How can you root for a thirteen year old girl and a 25 year old man to get together? Ugh!

Bryn Greenwood is a very good story teller with well developed characters and excellent descriptions.. To me, however, the subject matter in "All the Ugly and Wonderful Things" is very disturbing and not a subject I enjoyed reading about. Because of this, I am sorry, but I cannot recommend this book.