Sometimes when I’m talking about All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, I have a hard time trying to get across the point that there are worse things that can happen to a girl raised around drug addicts. For a lot of readers, Wavy’s life seems utterly horrific, as is her relationship with what one person described as a “drug-dealing bike thug with a violent, hair-trigger temper.” Even as I wrote Wavy’s story, though, I was carrying in the back of my mind the knowledge that things could have been so much worse for her. As bad as Wavy’s parents are, there are far worse monsters out there.
Today, the morning news contained a visceral reminder of that. Here is the story of Victoria Martens. Drugged, raped, and murdered by her mother, her mother’s boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s cousin. This is real life, not fiction, and it illustrates the absolute most horrific thing that can happen to a child when the adults in her life are drug addicts who have lost touch with reality, decency, and respect for human life.
And while the news doesn’t mention it, these people are drug addicts. Casual users of drugs pop pills or snort coke, like they’ve seen in the movies. Casual drug users don’t keep the necessary equipment to inject a 10-year-old girl with meth so that their boyfriends can rape her on her birthday. (I have no interest in parsing the details of who did the injecting, raping, murdering. If her mother was there for it and could have intervened, she as good as did it all herself.)
So while I will be the first person to acknowledge that Wavy’s relationship with Kellen is neither ideal nor desirable for a young girl, I also tend to look at it from the slant of other little girls’ tragedies. I wish every girl in this situation could simply get out of it and go to a safe home to live with responsible, loving adults. Failing that–and as a society, we are failing that–I wish all the girls in this situation had at least one person to provide them with unconditional love and protection. I wish the Wavies of the world could always have a Kellen in some form or another, but so often they don’t.
Love and peace to you, Victoria.
Bryn Greenwood 
It’s so hard to hear about reality. So often, I just don’t.want.to.
I can’t do anything about it. But, I refuse to hide my head in the sand, too.
I don’t know why such horrible stuff goes on. But, it does.
I just try to make my little tiny bit of world a better place.
Sigh.
It’s impossible to be the person who makes everything better for everyone, so we can only work on our corner of the world. And try to support government policies that improve the corners of the world we don’t have access to.
Having just read Wavy’s story, I can’t seem to pull myself out of her world and back into mine. Her story is my story in so many ways. I had so many breaks that some kids in my situation don’t get-the one’s who don’t make it out. I’m a teacher now and actively look for those kids, but after 20 years, I know I can’t find them all and even if I could, I can’t save them all. My job is to make them feel safe at school; to show them that an education can be a way out as it was for me. I have been so enraged by reviews of the book that tout it’s not a story that should be told. I wonder why I keep looking for these reviews, and then I know-I want to see what they think of me. It’s a story that shouldn’t be lived, but because so many do, it’s absolutely a story that should be told. I’m sorry if my life’s story makes them uncomfortable and I’m sorry if the people who were heroes in my life would be no more than scum on the bottom of their shoe. Some of us are thankful that we made it out alive and are able to function, and we are thankful to ALL the people who helped us along the way.
Thank you for reading, Dana. I’m glad you got those breaks, and are trying to pass them on.