Review: The DUFF by Kody Keplinger
Title: The DUFF
Hardcover, 288 pages
Author: Kody Keplinger
Publisher: Little, Brown / Poppy
Publication Date: September 7, 2010
Source: Book Expo America
Buy: Amazon
Book Summary:
Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “the Duff,” she throws her Coke in his face.
But things aren’t so great at home right now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it. Eager for escape, Bianca throws herself into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with him.
Until it all goes horribly awry. It turns out Wesley isn’t such a bad listener, and his life is pretty screwed up, too. Suddenly Bianca realizes with absolute horror that she’s falling for the guy she thought she hated more than anyone.
Review:
Out of all of the books I got my first day at BEA, I chose The DUFF to read first. It’s a medium length book (not too overwhelming) and had a contemporary topic that I was interested in.
The book started off fine enough – we are introduced to all of our key players. The descriptions allowed me to visualize them in my head easily, so each scene was pretty well laid out in my mind.
After a few pages, I realized I was going to have a problem – Bianca (The “DUFF”) had a bit too much aggression for me. Actually, she had quite too much aggression for me. I understand that a person can be cynical, but her attitude was overly sarcastic and negative. She also cursed a lot (including the big F word), and sex was discussed (and had) in too many instances.
Let me back up here – I am not a reader that looks for unicorns and sunshine in every book that I read – but when something gets overly negative or vulgar it gets to me and distracts from the book. I also understood going in that the title (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) probably meant there would be some negativity, since that title is not a synonym for beauty queen – HOWEVER, I believe there is a difference between total negativity (and cursing and sex) and learning something about yourself. Bianca does learn some things in this book, but the way that she goes about it does not sit well with me (nor connect with me as a reader).
I don’t think I have seen any bad reviews for this book yet, so perhaps my opinion will be the stray one here.
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yeah, it's definitely good to read different reviews of the same book, this is the first critical one that wasn't over-gushing for me. thanks, nice review! I'm still gonna try it though
I have to admit, from the sections I heard read out at BEA, I just wasn't interested in this one at all.
Thanks for honest review! I actually have seen similar reviews, mostly complaints about the main character. I signed up for the tour for this one, but after reading some more reviews I decided to drop out.
Wow, thanks for this review. I don't like overly vulgar books. I thought the premise of the book looked interesting, but now I'm going to probably not read the book.
Very interesting… the only other review I've read is April's and hers was similar… I'll still be reading it and am really curious to see what I'll think of all that!
Hmmm I'm even more intrigued now, I will have to read it soon!
I have yet to read a positive review of this one which is too bad. I had been looking forward to reading it.
This makes me very sad. I was really looking forward to this read for my ninth graders. But as a young teacher I have to be extremely careful about what I put in my classroom. Verdict is still out, but I really appreciate the honest review.
If you want to censor it for sex and language then perhaps we should sentence Hunger Games for violence, The Forrest of Hands and Teeth for graphic text, and Laurie Halse Anderson for 'teaching kids to be anorexic'. Not good reasons in my book. I understand that made you not like it but I think we don't need to freak readers out by throwing it out there that you might not want your YA age relatives reading it.
I agree with you, Shanyn.
Pam: I think that the main difference between The DUFF and the books you mentioned is the way that these issues are handled. Yes, The Hunger Games has violence and The Forrest of Hands and Teeth can be graphic, and Laurie Halse Anderson can write very convincingly about eating disorders. But in doing so, it is a means to articulate a lesson or a point that is important for the reader to grasp.
With The DUFF, it seemed like the vulgarity was just there, and the excess of meaningless sex was talked about as if it were okay. What I got out of The DUFF was that sex just to avoid an issue is okay, because it's it's more likely you'll find a boyfriend than contract an STD, get pregnant, or become even more emotionally damaged. I think that the issue is worth addressing, but that the author did not handle it well at all; in fact, she seemed to trivialize it. I'd like to see Laurie Halse Anderson's take on this issue, or Ellen Hopkins'.