All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Uncomfortable. This book made me uncomfortable. A 13 year age difference isn't a huge deal between consenting adults, but she was 8 when he met her at 21. This book romanticizes pedophilia and sexualizes children and is written in a way to make you sympathetic to the situation. The male character even goes on about how her body is still childlike when she's finally at an adult age. I bought this book because it was very highly rated on goodreads and BOTM, and seriously wtf? Yes, the writing is compelling even if it switched between 1st person and 3rd person arbitrarily, and the romance would have been sweet if he wasn't a raging pedophile and she wasn't a mentally abused child that needed intensive therapy. If you weren't hoping that Butch or Nurse Patty reported it before anything happened between them, then what is wrong with you? This isn't some Renesme bs where the werewolf stays the same age until the girl grows up (which was also gross), this is highly probable friends of the family grooming vulnerable abused children into romantic relationships. This is real and it's not okay. And I don't care that it was the 70's-80's and back in the day this was normalized. You should know better not to publish this crap in 2016. Not okay. And the only character that was trying to point out that this situation was wrong and was actively trying to step in was vilified for it.
And all the people who want to go off about how this book was controversial on purpose, no. You do not write multiple sex scenes involving 13 year olds where you describe their underdeveloped body in detail. No. Arguing that it wasn't pedophilia because it was a one time thing and he was also attracted to adults. You are the problem. Trying to argue semantics when an abused child is being sexualized by a formerly abused adult is pathetic. Nothing about this situation should have been romanticized.