Review: Every Ugly Word by Aimee L. Salter

Publication: July 29th 2014 by Alloy Entertainment
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Paranormal
Format: Kindle Edition, 257 pages
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When seventeen-year-old Ashley Watson walks through the halls of her high school bullies taunt and shove her. She can’t go a day without fighting with her mother. And no matter how hard she tries, she can’t make her best friend, Matt, fall in love with her. But Ashley also has something no one else does: a literal glimpse into the future. When Ashley looks into the mirror, she can see her twenty-three-year-old self. Her older self has been through it all already—she endured the bullying, survived the heartbreak, and heard every ugly word her classmates threw at her. But her older self is also keeping a dark secret: Something terrible is about to happen to Ashley. Something that will change her life forever. Something even her older self is powerless to stop.

"Their cruelty says a lot more about them than it does about you."

I have been bullied by my neighbors' kids before because I am skinny. I am still being bullied by now because I am still skinny. I don't think they hate me because I am skinny. Hate is not the word. I never held grudge on them. It's just what they see and what they feel. They just like bullying. They just like to hurt people's feelings. They just want you to see yourself in the mirror and say to your self that you don't deserve to breath in this world because you do not belong to the norm. You are different. You are something. You are something to their eyes - NO. You are nothing to them. But if I am nothing to them, why is it when I pass by they go silent and talk and giggle and shout that I'm a shit load skinny girl? I think that's nothing. I think you are something to them. Does that something means you are a hindrance to the beauty they see because you are not? I don't know. I just don't understand these bullies. I just don't. When you are bullied, you became a bully, too. I bully my own brother. I tell him things he is not. But he wasn't nothing to me. He is something. He is my brother. Still, I don't understand. I did not understand even myself.

There are not much sameness on me and Ashley throughout the book except for the love of art. It is true that art is where you can express it all but she didn't notice that not until someone approached her with her finished work. Anyway, we are talking about bully here. The way the book was portraying bully is disturbing and too much but it is possible in the real world. The author itself is a result of bully when she was in high school. Her story and Ashley's have similarities - happened in school and with about a found letter. You can read the article of Alloy Entertainment featuring Aimee's Hate Breeds essay.

I have not trusted any of the characters at first because the flow is disorienting. But when I knew Ashley is treated in a displeasing manner, I started to feel for her but she constantly betrays me with her mulishness. She's totally over with Matt! Her love for him is too much and it's pesky! But what's more irritating is Matt. I was never committed with his words. He was also confused with Ashley and happened to be near its peak unto one of Ashley's bully.

There are lot of bullies around Ashley and the number one of it is her mother. We can say sometimes that we are unlucky we have a mother like ours but Ashley is exceedingly unlucky. Besides all this people who are bullies, is Ashley's Older Me. She's seeing Older Me thru reflections and this what's make this book paranormal and more than necessary but it helped the book to go through. She's not a bully to Ashley but she is keeping what she experienced to Ashley tho she invariably advise her.

Every Ugly Word is a compelling read on stopping hate and those who deliberately intimidates other people out of their weakness. An absolute essential read intended for all and sundry.



Source: Publisher via Netgalley · I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content.

Yani

Let's leave it up to this quote from Emily Brontë:
“And from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright unclouded day.”