The Duff - Kody Keplinger
Rating: 4/5 cans
Pages - 280
Publisher - Little Brown
Genre - Young Adult, Coming of Age, Contemporary
I devoured this book, two days was all it took. Let me tell you, this was just the book I needed, after reading SOLD by Patricia McCornick, a book about sex trafficking, this book was the funny, pick me up I have been thirsting for.
So this book circles around Bianca, the 'D.U.F.F' or the Designated Ugly Fat Friend the weakest of her tight need group of friends, she never really thought about it like that until Wesley, the man-whore, all around douche bag, points it out, thus beginning a spiral of shit that you need to read. I'm so good at this.
The characters got to me, they were so three dimensional, and I just loved them, every single one. Even Nikki. Another factor I absolutely loved was the situations the main character, Bianca, found herself in, it was, again, real. This story being told in first person, the syntax and sentence structure really got to me, sometimes when reading young adult, and especially contemporary, I find myself detaching from the supposed teen. They sometimes came across as too old, or too wordy, or too stupid, or not genuine enough, and I feel as if Keplinger mastered the average teen life, and attitude. It was just too accurate.
One criticism I do have, though, is how the entire novel consisted of Bianca growing in a way, while facing several different, perplexing situations, one of the mentioned situations is alcoholism, and divorce, and how teen girls view one another, and themselves. I feel like the romance just glazed over the, in my opinion, strongest point in the novel, what drew me in, and when the two love interests finally got together, it just brushed everything off, so the ending was a huge meh. It was anti-climactic, and a little flat, and such.
Aside from that, I loved this novel so much, and would recommend this novel to anyone who loves young adult literature, and contemporaries. This is just right up your ally.
X RAMO :-)
P.s.: Sorry about the hiatus, I know I've been gone for a while, but I am here to tell you NO, i'm not dead.
