Big Mouth and Ugly Girl

Title: Big Mouth & Ugly Girl
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
Year: 2002
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age: Teen
Summary: Matthew Donaghy (Big Mouth) has always had a big mouth. But it never got him into trouble — until one day when two detectives escort him out of class for questioning. The charge is that Matt has been accused of threatening to blow up Rocky River High School. Although he is innocent of the accusation, people shun him, and many adults, including the principal of Rocky River High School, get suspicious.

Ursula Riggs is a strong athlete at Rocky River High. She secretly gives herself the proper name “Ugly Girl.” Ursula has no time for petty high school distractions like friends (except for her friend Bonnie) and dating. Ursula is content to mind her own business. She hardly knows Matt Donaghy at the start of the novel.

But Ursula knows injustice when she sees it and is not afraid to speak out.

“Big Mouth & Ugly Girl.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 15 Nov 2009, 22:37 UTC. 18 Nov 2009 .

My Thoughts: This book is a fun read on a topic that most people probably never give a thought to: being on the inside of the newspaper headline. It is about high school gossip, and how strong of a person you need to be not to get sucked into it. “Ugly Girl” is an incredibly strong female character, who I think many girls could relate to. I especially love how she compares herself to a horse throughout the story…it is just such an apt way to describe how insecurities can make you feel sometimes.
More than just the obvious, I loved how Oates shows how easily people can be thrown into hysterics, and how they are usually tricked into it by the most unreliable source. She highlights how the Salem Witch Trials happen again and again in our society, just disguised as something else.

Millennium Trilogy

Title(s):
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2005)
The Girl Who Played with Fire (2006)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2007)
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Crime/Mystery/Thriller
Age: Mature High School Students
Summary: This series follows the story of two main characters Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist, and Lisbeth Salander, an introvert with a photographic memory. The two meet through unlikely circumstances, and are kept together by even unlikelier circumstances.
My Thoughts: I had to be heavily persuaded to read this set of books, so I am a little late on the "I love the Millennium Trilogy" bandwagon, but I am there now.
I have to admit, it was difficult for me to get into the first book because roughly the first hundred pages are an introduction that involves many Swedish references that left me lost in the dust. Luckily, I had many people encouraging me to keep reading because from there on in it was like going down the most fantastic roller coaster. Each novel in the trilogy has the most sophisticated sets of twist and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat from one novel to the next.
Larsson is a master of not revealing too much at once. The stories are so complicated and well written that it takes the reader a while to realize that Larsson is 5 steps ahead of you.
I do offer one warning before picking up one of these books: there are a few graphically violent scenes throughout the trilogy, so if something like that would offend or upset you, these aren't the books for you.