I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Dumplin' by Julie Murphy Series: Dumplin' #1
Published by Balzer + Bray on 9/15/15
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 380
Format: Hardcover
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body.
With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked . . . until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.
Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any girl does.
Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.
Short and Sweet Review
Willowdean or Dumplin’ is a self proclaimed fat girl and in this book she’s learning a lot about herself and the relationship she has with those around her. Willowdean is happy with who she is but she does struggle with insecurities at times. The first half of the book we learn who Willowdean is and why she loves Dolly Parton so much, and its because of her now passed aunt Lucy. It isn’t until the second half of the book that Willowdean decides to join the pageant. Theres not much that goes on in this book plot wise there isn’t a big plot or anything huge we just navigate life with Will. There’s a lot of relationships in this book with Will and her mom, Will and her best friend El, Will and her aunt Lucy, there is also a love triangle with Will, Bo, and Mitch. Lets start with Will and Lucy. Lucy was basically a second mother to Will and she’s the one who introduced Will to Dolly’s music. We also see Will try to keep Lucy’s memory alive by listening to Dolly and going through her stuff often. Will and her mom, Rosie have a tense relationship. Rosie won the beauty pageant when she was a teen and now she is on the pageant committee. Will feels that because of her size her mother doesn’t see her as beautiful, these two clash a few times in the book. Will and El, I love these two they’ve been friends for the longest time and its Dolly’s music that brought them together. These two support each other but they do learn that sometimes even though you love someone you could always use a little space. So the boys… Mitch is in Will’s class and he asks her out and they hangout a few times. Bo is someone Will works with and eventually he starts going to the same school, these two made out a few times during the summer but Will felt as if Bo was trying to keep her a secret and she didn’t like that. During the second half of the book Will hangs out with Millie, Amanda, and Hannah a few other girls that have joined the pageant. This group of girls are misfits but in the end they learn to embrace the things that make them different and I think that this is one of the most beautiful things about this book. I enjoyed reading Dumplin’ and once I got into it it didn’t take long for me to finish it. I love that these girls learned to embrace who they are and I also like how Will realized how important the people around her really were. I would recommend this book its cute and has a good message and I also watched the Netflix movie and obviously some things were changed but it was also pretty good.
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