A Place Called Ugly

Owen (14) and his family have been spending three weeks every summer at the same beach cottage on a small island. When he learns that the cottage is going to be torn down after they leave to make room for a new hotel, Owen decides he is going to stay, and somehow save the cottage and prevent the

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hotel from going up. Initially, the reader may admire Owen's spunk and determination, but our sympathy quickly dries up when we learn that every single person who lives on the island year round desperately wants the hotel to go up. The hotel will mean more jobs, better jobs, financial security, more tourists, and a real livelihood. But Owen doesn't give a whit about any of that, even when the one person on the island who seems to like him, the pretty Terri, allows that she wants the hotel too. The protagonist is a selfish, spoiled brat when it comes down to it, and that sours my appreciation of the book.
Owen desperately needs to see that Star Trek movie... "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

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