num_pages: 272
description: Hard-hitting, page-turning and celebratory of friendship in unlikely circumstances, Joyce Carol Oates' sure touch with small town life hits home in her first young adult novel. Matt Donaghy is the class joker, and Ursula Riggs is the misfit loner. Neither knows the other. But when Matt is suddenly arrested on a charge of threatening to blow up the school and massacre the students, Ursula is the only one who sees through the hysteria and hypocrisy, and corroborates Matt's story. The case is dropped, but Matt's old friends avoid him, and his teachers treat him with kid gloves. Even Ursula, apparently his only friend during the crisis, can't meet his eye. But Ursula can't remain aloof when she catches Matt contemplating suicide -- and a strange friendship is born.
language: English
title: Big Mouth and Ugly Girl
titlecomplete: Big Mouth and Ugly Girl
genres: Young Adult, School, Coming Of Age, Teen, High School, Fiction, Read For School, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Romance
ratings_count: 5452
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Audie Award
category: Multi-Voiced Performance, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Bronzener Lufti, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Gateway Readers Award
publisher: Harpercollins Childs