If you’re looking for a romance story, this ain’t it. Put the book down and find something fluffy. If you’re looking for something tragically real, this IS it. This story isn’t meant to make you swoon or root for them. You are a bystander like Wavy’s teachers or her cousins or one of the misfits that run in her parents’ crowd. You know something is up. You don’t know if you should say something because at least someone is looking out for that little girl, right? At least someone loves Wavonna. As complicated and at times inappropriate as it may be. You could say this is Lolita set in a Midwest meth backdrop, but Kellen isn’t the perverted Humbert. He does genuinely care for Wavy, and he is troubled by his own conflicting feelings for her too. They both know what they have isn’t conventional or proper or legal. But it’s theirs. And they both spent a whole lifetime of uncertainty, of not having anything. If you lived in a similar location in which this book is set, you may know your own personal Wavy and Kellen. This book lives up to its title; ugly and beautiful all at once.