- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: HarperTempest; First HarperTempest Edition edition (May 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0066237564
- ISBN-13: 978-0066237565
- Product Dimensions: 18.7 x 13.5 x 2.7 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,165,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl
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Product Description
Review
“The relationship between Ursula and Matt grows, credibly and compellingly, against a convincing high school backdrop. Readers will relate to the pressures these two experience, both at school and from their parents, and be gratified by their ability to emerge the wiser.”
Publisher’s Weekly
Praise for Joyce Carol Oates’ writing:
"Miss Oates is one of our most audaciously talented writers. Her gift is so large, her fluency in different genres – poems, short stories, novels, essays – so great, that at times she seems to challenge the ability of readers to keep up with her."
Erica Jong
“One of the greatest writers of our time."
John Gardner
“… compelling… Honest and penetrating.” Kirkus Reviews
“Believable, full-blooded characters… convincing high-school back-drop.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A thought-provoking, character-driven drama.” Booklist (starred review)
“A fast-moving, timely, compelling story.” School Library Journal
“A divinely readable novel, one of the finest and most provocative in any genre of late.” Ruminator Review
A superb story bursting with themes relevant to high school life today. Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Middle and high school kids will find a lot rings true in “Big Mouth and Ugly Girl.” San Francisco Chronicle
Product Description
Hard-hitting, page-turning and celebratory of friendship in unlikely circumstances, Joyce Carol Oates' sure touch with small town life hits home in her first young adult novel.
Matt Donaghy
has always been a
BIG MOUTH
but it's never gotten him in trouble – until one day when two detectives escort him out of class for questioning. Matt has been accused of threatening to blow up Rocky River High School.
Ursula Riggs
has always been an
UGLY GIRL
A loner with fierce, staring eyes, Ursula has no time for petty high school stuff like friends and dating – or at least that's what she tells herself. Ursula is content with minding her own business. And she doesn't even really know Matt Donaghy.
But Ursula is the only person who knows what Matt really said that day… and she is the only one who can help him.
In her first novel for young adults, acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates has created a provocative and unflinching story of friendship and family, and of loyalty and betrayal.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
IT WAS AN ORDINARY JANUARY AFTERNOON, a Thursday, when they came for Matt Donaghy. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
IT WAS AN ORDINARY JANUARY AFTERNOON, a Thursday, when they came for Matt Donaghy. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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77 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
It's Oates... but not Oates.
6 Jan 2004
Format:Hardcover
Joyce Carol Oates, Big Mouth and Ugly Girl (Harper, 2002)
Okay, I admit it. I'm a sucker for books like this. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl into pickle. Boy gets girl out of pickle. Boy gets pickle into girl. They all live happily ever after.
Now turn that formula on its head.
Big Mouth is Matt Donaghy, class clown. Popular guy, suddenly arrested one afternoon as a suspect in a bomb scare. Ugly Girl is Ursula Riggs, captain of the basketball team, anything but popular, a witness to the events surrounding Matt being a suspect. As with many high school kids, Ursula and Matt know each other by sight, but have never really talked. Still, Ursula feels compelled to go to Matt's defense, immediately sparking rumors that the two of them are an item. Which is ludicrous, right? Despite Ursula's growing feelings for Matt, that seem to be reciprocated when she can pull her head out of her posterior long enough to notice.
In other words, your basic coming of age novel. Which is all well and good but, well, this is Joyce Carol Oates we're talking about. And this is the first Oates novel I've read that's missing the common Oates (and Rosamond Smith, too) thread-the overwhelming sense of dread and despair that culminates in the horror of human tragedy. The house burning in Beasts. The child molestation in Cybele. The son killing his father in A Garden of Earthly Delights. Teddy Kennedy plunging off the Chappaquiddick bridge in Black Water. Oates novels end with a massive display of human-tragedy fireworks, don't they? Well, they all have up till now. Oates fans will be expecting the other shoe to drop, and will likely be sorely disappointed.
Not to say the ending that's here is bad, it's just, well, somewhat predictable.
What is classic Oates in this novel are the characters and their development. Oates is a master at subtleties of character, and Ursula Riggs is one of the most real high school students to come along in a novel in a very long time. She alone is worth the price of admission, all the other good stuff is just icing on the cake. ***
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
The Mouth that cried Wolf
29 Jun 2002
Format:Hardcover
The Young Adult book field is not one that comes to mind when I think of the body of Joyce Carol Oates'work. Yet here it is from the prolific Oates, "Big Mouth and Ugly Girl."
BMUG chronicles the high school and family life of Ursula Riggs(known to herself as "Ugly Girl") and Matt Donaghy (Big Mouth).
The plot is very simple and up-to-date newspaper headline-wise as Matt is accused of plotting to blow up his high school and Ursula, though heretofore not a friend of Matt's, comes to his rescue out of a sterling sense of "what is right."
Both Ursula and Matt suffer from what most of us suffered in high school: self-esteem problems, not feeling part of any group, hating our parents and siblings, etc.
Oates,being the master craftswman that she is, takes this rather tepid plot and fills it with telling details of both Matt's and Ursula's life after the accusation which sets the plot in motion:"It was like Matt had been wounded somwhere on his body he couldn't see, and the wound was visible to others, raw and ugly. When they looked at him, they saw just the wound. They weren't seeing Matt Donaghy any longer."
Under normal high school clique circumstances Matt and Ursula would have never made a connection. But through Ursula's sense of what is right and her acting upon it; and despite her parents objections, Ursula and Matt become a couple.
The moral of the story is simple but definitely needs restating to teenagers, but not only to teenagers, especially when it is restated in the glorious, tight and controlled prose of Joyce Carol Oates.
What Oates has done is pare down her gorgeous style to the bare minimum of words necessary to convey a mood, a thought or an emotion. What lessons and morals are to be learned can be easily picked off like so many berries off a tree. But in no way whatsoever does the storytelling seem didactic or obvious or over-simplified.
Joyce Carol Oates has fashioned a novel for teenagers brimming over with morality and resposibilty but has done it in a way that does not talk down to her specific audience. All of we Oates fans need not be wary of this book as it is wriiten on the highest level of craftsmanship and deserves a special place in the oeuvre of one of our finest contemporary writers.
BMUG chronicles the high school and family life of Ursula Riggs(known to herself as "Ugly Girl") and Matt Donaghy (Big Mouth).
The plot is very simple and up-to-date newspaper headline-wise as Matt is accused of plotting to blow up his high school and Ursula, though heretofore not a friend of Matt's, comes to his rescue out of a sterling sense of "what is right."
Both Ursula and Matt suffer from what most of us suffered in high school: self-esteem problems, not feeling part of any group, hating our parents and siblings, etc.
Oates,being the master craftswman that she is, takes this rather tepid plot and fills it with telling details of both Matt's and Ursula's life after the accusation which sets the plot in motion:"It was like Matt had been wounded somwhere on his body he couldn't see, and the wound was visible to others, raw and ugly. When they looked at him, they saw just the wound. They weren't seeing Matt Donaghy any longer."
Under normal high school clique circumstances Matt and Ursula would have never made a connection. But through Ursula's sense of what is right and her acting upon it; and despite her parents objections, Ursula and Matt become a couple.
The moral of the story is simple but definitely needs restating to teenagers, but not only to teenagers, especially when it is restated in the glorious, tight and controlled prose of Joyce Carol Oates.
What Oates has done is pare down her gorgeous style to the bare minimum of words necessary to convey a mood, a thought or an emotion. What lessons and morals are to be learned can be easily picked off like so many berries off a tree. But in no way whatsoever does the storytelling seem didactic or obvious or over-simplified.
Joyce Carol Oates has fashioned a novel for teenagers brimming over with morality and resposibilty but has done it in a way that does not talk down to her specific audience. All of we Oates fans need not be wary of this book as it is wriiten on the highest level of craftsmanship and deserves a special place in the oeuvre of one of our finest contemporary writers.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Big Mouth Ugly Girl
24 Jun 2003
Format:Hardcover
Big Mouth Ugly Girl, written by Joyce Carol Oates, is an excellent book for high school students to read. In post-Columbine America, Matt Donoghy has been pulled out of class by police due to accusations of making remarks that he will blow up the school. Ursula Riggs, Ugly Girl as she calls herself, is the only person who does not believe the rumors and she ignores her parents strict instructions to not get involved. She comes forward and talks to the principal about what really happened. The story alternates between Ursula and Matt, who do not even know each other at school. Ursula is large framed and more interested in sports than most girls her age. She is having a tough time figuring out who she is. Matt is dealing with losing his friends and reputation. Throughout the book, Ursula and Matt work out their problems despite what others think.
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