All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-12

Part 2, Chapters 1-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-13

Part 3, Chapters 1-6

Part 3, Chapters 7-12

Part 4, Chapters 1-6

Part 4, Chapters 7-13

Part 5, Chapters 1-8

Part 5, Chapters 9-16

Part 5, Chapters 17-21

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Stars

Content Warning: This section references physical and emotional abuse and drug use, and it centers on a sexualized relationship between an adult and a minor.

Wavy recites the names of stars like a mantra. To go to sleep, to settle herself in chaos, to communicate with Kellen: Wavy uses the names of stars and constellations to connect herself to a wider world, lifting herself out of the chaos and terror of her unpredictable, violent existence. Amy hears her list stars when Wavy will hardly say anything else.

The star motif reappears in Wavy’s other lifeline: her relationship with Kellen. Before Wavy knows Kellen’s name, she notices his belt with its red stones that resemble Orion’s belt. After his wreck, while they wait for help to come, Wavy keeps Kellen from passing out by naming the stars for him until she hears a car coming. Kellen and Wavy later spend hours in the meadow watching the stars. The night they watch the Perseid meteor shower, Wavy puts her hand on Kellen’s belt buckle and says “Orion.” She imitates the sexual act she has seen the Snake Girl engage in with Kellen, combining it with her own place of safety. Throughout their relationship, Wavy will connect Orion with Kellen’s belt buckle, a code for safety and risk, distance and intimacy, affection and destruction.

Wavy majors in astrophysics in college, moving her interest in the stars from the mythic to scientific realm. No longer content to watch the stars from a distance, Wavy longs for the power of understanding how the universe works. For Wavy, knowing the mechanics of stars makes them no less symbolic or powerful. Once she needed the stars to take her out of her life; as an adult, the stars become central to her life and her identity. Their development as a motif encapsulates her arc in Overcoming the Dehumanization of Abuse.

Germs and Dirt

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things contains graphic sexual situations and language, implicitly asking readers to consider their definitions of what constitutes innocence and what can be called “dirty.” Wavy’s mother Val believes children all contain filth and germs; she visits Wavy’s class and claims the children are “smearing [germs] on every surface” (39). She washes Wavy with Listerine and bleach, especially if she has been near Liam. Donal seems less affected; Val’s full paranoia falls mostly on Wavy. However, when Donal witnesses the murders, he talks about having dirt he needs to clean off of himself. The police think he may mean blood, but it may be the image of his mother’s murder that makes him feel he needs to be cleansed.

When Kellen tells Wavy their kissing and touching is “dirty,” she thinks she has infected Kellen, just as Val said she would. Kellen has a hard time understanding the confusion since he only knows Val is neglectful, not physically abusive or someone with a mental health condition. It is only when he finds Wavy scrubbing herself in cold water and bleach that he figures out what has been happening to her.

For poor girls like Wavy, being clean can be one way of overcoming class biases against children who cannot afford big wardrobes or brand-new clothes. Hygiene is an integral part of social capital and potential mobility. While Val’s obsession in the novel indicates a mental health condition, an obsession with cleanliness can often be seen among people struggling with poverty. As a motif, germs and dirt develop Fear’s Stifling of Love, from the way in which Val’s phobia warps her daughter’s understanding of intimacy to the more figurative way in which contempt for the lower classes manifests as a fear of contamination.

Food

For most of the novel, Wavy will not eat in front of anyone. Amy realizes she has been allowed to witness an intimate moment in the final chapter when she sees Donal and Wavy eating off the same plate in the kitchen, both overcoming Val’s germ phobia and Wavy’s fear of eating in public. Wavy typically eats late at night, stealing food from other houses or going through the trash. She adopts the habits of a night animal as a means of self-preservation, as Val would often pour Listerine in Wavy’s throat for eating in front of her.

One of Wavy’s first sexual encounters with Kellen happens when Wavy asks him to cover his eyes so she can eat ice cream. Wavy sublimates the pleasure does not take in eating as sexuality; she loves watching Kellen eat and compares the attention and care he takes in chewing to the way he kisses her. Wavy loves to cook for Kellen and later for friends and her college roommate. Renee identifies cooking as a way Wavy shows affection.

When Wavy petitions to move out of the dormitory, she cites her eating disorder as a reason she needs to live in an apartment. Her proactive efforts and her honesty about her needs demonstrate Wavy’s growing ability to face and defeat the obstacles thrown in her way by insensible systems. Rather than remain in a place where she cannot go to the kitchen and eat alone at night, Wavy identifies her problem and asks for help. Her victory in gaining permission to live on her own paves the way for Wavy to solve bigger administrative and bureaucratic problems. It also marks her admission of her eating disorder, which has symbolized slow erasure or disappearance. As Wavy develops more confidence and sees her actions create results, she feels less and less like disappearing. By the end of the novel, she starts growing again, signaling a newfound health.