Bryn Greenwood

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Bryn Greenwood

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BRYN GREENWOOD is the NYT bestselling author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things and The Reckless Oath We Made. Her fifth novel is out now: NOBODY KNOWS YOU'RE HERE. She lives in northeast Kansas.


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Bryn Greenwood Thanks for the question, Zuky! I get inspiration from all kinds of things, but this book literally started with me seeing a guy riding a motorcycle on…moreThanks for the question, Zuky! I get inspiration from all kinds of things, but this book literally started with me seeing a guy riding a motorcycle on a dirt road through a hay field at sunset. I wanted to know who he was and where he was going. My daydreaming about that scene turned into Wavy and Kellen's story. As for how I managed to make their relationship something more than a tragic headline? The short answer is that I lived it. The book isn't autobiographical, but at the age of 13, I did date and fall in love with a much older man. I wasn't normal. He wasn't normal. But we understood each other. We had a loving, consensual romance that nurtured me more than a lot of my adult relationships have. (less)
Bryn Greenwood If people were comparing my prose to Nabokov's, I'd be incredibly flattered, but I think any comparison of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things to Lolita…moreIf people were comparing my prose to Nabokov's, I'd be incredibly flattered, but I think any comparison of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things to Lolita or Tampa is based on a very passing acquaintance with the stories. Lolita and Tampa are both constructed as a first-person account of a narcissistic pedophile/ephebophile. Humbert and Celeste are predators and their stories are meant to shock, titillate, and disturb, even as they draw the reader in.

As for my book, I firmly maintain that Kellen is not a pedophile (nor an ephebophile), but he has the misfortune of falling for the right girl at the wrong time. From Wavy's perspective, he falls for her at the perfect time: when she desperately needs him. Life's funny that way. My intention in writing the book was not to titillate, but to tell a story about love and perseverance that reflects parts of American life that don't often get seen beyond headlines. As for The Glass Castle, it's actually a memoir, whereas All the Ugly and Wonderful Things is purely fiction. A lot more people would have to pass away before I publish a memoir.

In terms of inspiration, I tend to read very erratically, so that I almost never end up reading something that relates to or is remotely similar to what I'm writing. In fact, when I wrote All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, I wasn't even reading. I was in the middle of a complete home remodeling project. I was spending nine hours at my day job, four hours gutting and reassembling my house, then another four to six hours every night writing in a friend's spare bedroom. I sacrificed both sleep and reading for the house and the book. (less)
Average rating: 3.97 · 243,017 ratings · 30,990 reviews · 7 distinct worksSimilar authors
All the Ugly and Wonderful ...

3.97 avg rating — 213,187 ratings — published 2016 — 32 editions
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The Reckless Oath We Made

3.99 avg rating — 14,910 ratings — published 2019 — 17 editions
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Nobody Knows You're Here

4.07 avg rating — 12,720 ratings3 editions
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Last Will

3.79 avg rating — 1,181 ratings — published 2012 — 9 editions
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Lie Lay Lain

3.68 avg rating — 1,005 ratings — published 2014 — 7 editions
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The Battered Suitcase Janua...

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3.46 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2009
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All the Ugly and Wonderful ...

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More books by Bryn Greenwood…

A novel-writing human fights fascism

My fifth novel, Nobody Knows You’re Here, is out today, available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook. I wrote the first scenes for it without knowing that it would turn out to be a suspense/thriller novel. It’s my first attempt at the genre, and I spent a lot of time asking myself if it was in fact suspenseful or thrilling. I also spent an enormous amount of time reading all the materials I could

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Published on September 16, 2025 11:18

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To clarify, nothing against this book’s prose or pacing. It’s highly readable unless you have a powerful bias against books about writers. That’s just a me problem.
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Quotes by Bryn Greenwood  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“I liked learning things. How numbers worked together to explain the stars. How molecules made the world. All the ugly and wonderful things people had done in the last two thousand years.”
Bryn Greenwood, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

“Most days I was impossible. Like a unicorn.”
Bryn Greenwood, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

“When I reached her, she was a star, pulling me into her orbit”
Bryn Greenwood, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Polls

🍀March 2023 General Poll🌺

Out of courtesy to other group members, we ask that you only vote if you are planning on participating in our discussion should your choice win. Thank you.

Which Crime, Mystery, or Thriller would you like to read in March?

The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
 
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  30 votes, 23.1%

 
  19 votes, 14.6%

 
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  13 votes, 10.0%

Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder (write-in)
 
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Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder By Steve S. Saroff (write-in)
 
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the inheritance Games (write-in)
 
  5 votes, 3.8%

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“If you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.”
Werner Herzog

“The Heart wants what it wants - or else it does not care”
Emily Dickinson
tags: love

“when it’s only you and your sister, you can do any embarrassing thing you want.”
Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell The Wolves I'm Home

“Mr. Arsenikos said if you knew the constellations you would never get lost. You could always find your way home.”
Bryn Greenwood, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

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message 1: by Cathy

Cathy Thanks so much for adding me as a book friend Bryn. I'm looking forward to reading your book very soon!


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