Big Mouth And Ugly Girl By Joyce Carol Oates

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Big Mouth & Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates HarperCollins, May, 2002. Hardcover, 272 pages. The book is a Young Adult Novel Plot: A teenager called Ursula becomes “friends” with a boy named Matt after he is accused of blowing up their high school. Ursula is a misunderstood athlete girl whose friend Matt is picked up in class by Police officers accusing him of enormous crimes. Because of this, Matt gets rumors all around him from people saying he had a gun and a bomb. A weapon of some sort. He was angry with some teachers for giving him a bad grade on a test and determined to kill as many people as he could. Ursula defends Matt refusing to believe any of it. However, due to her lack of popularity, no one listens to her when she stands up to …show more content…

Even the child welfare workers are as confused as his mother is. While his “incident” is under investigation Matt gets suspended for three days, which makes him feel doomed. He receives an email from Ursula with her begging him to call her on the phone number she left. However, since they aren’t really good friends, he does not call her immediately. After a couple days still not hearing from his friends, he decides to call Ursula. She tells him she has his back and promises to tell the principal what she overheard Matt say, and to make sure the school knows that Matt is innocent. Matts parents decide to sue anyone who has slandered their sons name. Ursula’s parents don’t want her involved and are upset about her seeing the principal against their will. Ursula wont be stopped by anyone and she and Matt start an email relationship where he tells her his feeling and she …show more content…

Ursula and Matt group together and pays a visit to the guy they know has something to do with Pumpkins disappearance. The dog gets returned that evening and Matt convinces his parents to cancel the lawsuit. He is no longer a suspect thanks to Ursula’s great help. Matt and Ursula gets better friends and hope to become even better friends in the future. Characters: There are two main characters, Ursula and Matt. Ursula is an unpopular all star athlete girl who is very misunderstood and does not have any friends. Matt however is slightly different. He is just a casual boy who ends up in a misery for joking about blowing up the school. They are both teenagers from the USA and go to the same school. Theme: In my opinion the theme is that no matter how unpopular you are or how disliked you are, there is no reason to stop showing who you really are and help other people who are struggling in the same situation as you. Setting: The story takes place in a dirty and grimy city in northeast USA. It takes place over a couple months as the conflict with Matt is slowly being

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