Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IT WAS AN ORDINARY JANUARY AFTERNOON, a Thursday, when they came for Matt Donaghy..." (more)
Key Phrases: ugly girl, Rocky River, Matt Donaghy, Ursula Riggs (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Believable, full-blooded characters propel Oates's first YA novel past some plotting that doesn't quite add up. Ursula Riggs, a high school junior, has adopted a stance of invincible indifference ("Since that day I woke up and knew I wasn't an ugly girl, I was Ugly Girl"). Against her mother's wishes, she leaps to her classmate Matt Donaghy's defense when his throwaway joke about blowing up the school makes him a suspected terrorist, but then rebuffs Matt's overtures to friendship. Told in alternating perspectives (Ursula's in first-person and Matt's in third), the novel intensifies even though Matt is quickly exonerated. Matt's friends ice him out, citing pressure from their parents, and his family receives hate mail. When Matt's family files suit against the school and his accusers, the hostilities escalate, and Matt nearly attempts suicide (Ursula, again in the right place at the right time, saves him once more). In turn, Matt helps Ursula realize that her Ugly Girl persona "wasn't right for all occasions." The weak spots here have to do with the villains (including the students who reported Matt's "joke" and those who bully him); they are barely developed, and stereotypes seem to have taken the place of their motivation. But 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. Ages 13-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up-While horsing around in the high school cafeteria, Matt Donaghy makes some remarks that land him in a world of trouble. Yanked out of fifth-period study hall by plainclothes policemen, he learns that he's suspected of plotting to bomb the school. In this day and age that's no joking matter. His friends are advised by their parents not to get involved, lest they fall under suspicion themselves. Only the resolutely individualistic, somewhat frightening Ursula Riggs, a girl he barely knows, is willing to speak up on Matt's behalf. With a combination of clear-sightedness and bravado she gets the principal to rethink Matt's suspension-and that's just the beginning of Oates's novel. The next three-quarters of the book become even more interesting, as the author explores the subsequent social pressures placed on the teenagers and adults in a fictitious, affluent suburb of New York City. Oates has a good ear for the speech, the family relations, the e-mail messaging, the rumor mills, and the easy cruelties waiting just beneath the veneer of civility. Matt's character and especially the heroic Ursula's are depicted with a raw honesty. Readers will be propelled through these pages by an intense curiosity to learn how events will play out. Oates has written a fast-moving, timely, compelling story.
Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064473473
• ISBN-13: 978-0064473477
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #254,935 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Mouth that cried Wolf, June 28, 2002

By	MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's Oates... but not Oates., January 6, 2004

By	Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (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. ***

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Mouth Ugly Girl, June 23, 2003

By	Allyson Graddy "ally2252" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (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.