Saturday, May 27, 2017

Book Review: The Duff


"The Duff" by Kody Keplinger

Publication Date-June 7, 2011

Paperback Edition-277 pages

Genre-Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Humor

Rating-3.5 Lily Pads

Would I Recommend It? Yes
Possible Spoilers!!

Favorite Quote:

“No matter where you go or what you do to distract yourself, reality catches up with you eventually.” 

Hey guys. I finally read "The Duff". This book has been on my TBR for five years, basically since I first discovered booktube. I read "A Midsummer's Nightmare" by her and loved it. I thought I would love this book too but I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad book I enjoyed it but I didn't love it like I did with her other book. I feel like I would've liked this book more if I read it five years ago when I was younger. As an adult I'm starting to get sick of reading books that take place in High School. I don't hate all of them, most Young Adult contemporary books I love but I think this one felt too young for me. I'm sick of reading High School drama and that's exactly what this book was. Anyway let's get on with the review. 

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.

The Plot-3/5

Honestly, this book doesn't really have a plot which is why I gave it a low rating. It's basically just about a girl in High School who is the fat girl in her group of friends. It's just her day to day life mixed in with family and friend drama and lots of hookups with the school's playboy, Wesley. Not much happens. There is a lot of sex in this book, I'm surprised this is YA and not New Adult. It's not graphic but most of the book is Bianca hooking up with Wesley. 

The Writing-5/5
I know Kody isn't the best writer out there but I really like her writing. Since I loved "A Midsummer's Nightmare" I had to give her writing style a perfect rating because I just love the way she writes. 

The Pacing-5/5

I had no issues with pacing so it gets a perfect rating. 

The Cover-2/5

I like the movie cover but I really don't like the original cover. It doesn't really go with the book and I just think it's ugly. 

The Characters-4/5
I gave the characters this rating because I liked most of the characters but not all of them. Let's start with Bianca. I really liked her. She's very sassy, negative and sarcastic and I loved that about her. She's a unique character and I had that attitude in high school so I could relate to that. She made some bad decisions in the book but no character is perfect. I just loved reading her inner thoughts. 
I loved her best friends, Casey and Jessica. They were very likable. I loved Casey because she's a great friend. I love that she's a blonde cheerleader but she wasn't a stuck up snob. The fact that she wanted to be friends with a chubby loser even though she's a gorgeous cheerleader says a lot about her. I also loved Jessica, she was so cute and bubbly. I liked Bianca's parents. As for the romance, yes there's a love triangle in this book. I loved Toby, he was such a good guy and it's sad when you root for the guy that isn't the main love interest. Obviously you can tell that I didn't love Wesley. Honestly, I didn't really like him. He's not the worst character ever but I never grew attached to him. He has a nice side and he's not just a arrogant/playboy but I just didn't like him. My main problem with this book is the romance. When it comes to romance I'm never picky. It was a love/hate relationship because they hated each other at first, but their relationship was lust and it was more of a "friends with benefits" thing where they didn't like each other but they hooked up and had sex constantly to distract themselves from problems in their lives and I did not approve of that. Bianca always talks about how much she hates Wesley especially since he made up her nickname "The Duff" but then she'll throw herself at him and then they'll randomly make out and have sex like 50 times, that's basically what the whole book is. That's not a healthy relationship, I just didn't like that.I hated that she used him.  And then the whole them developing feelings for each other thing happened too fast for me. By the end of the book it felt like insta-love. I honestly wanted her to be with Toby, the boy she's crushed on for years and he's so nice and perfect. But of course she has to choose the mean,womanizer bad boy right? They can never end up with the good guy. So yeah, that was the main problem I had with this book. I didn't like them together and I never rooted for them. So yeah that's why I didn't give the characters a perfect rating like I usually do. 

Enjoyment-4/5

Even though I didn't love this book I still enjoyed reading it. 

My Overall rating is 3.5 Lily Pads. I originally gave it a 4 but I thought it over and decided to lower the rating. I liked this book it was a quick read. I'm not sure if I'll ever reread it, probably not but we'll see. I don't know if I'm going to watch the movie since I didn't love the book even though I heard the movie is completely different. I would still recommend it and think it's worth a buy. If you loved this book I highly recommend "A Midsummer's Nightmare" by her, that one was better in my opinion. So yeah that was my review. Thank you so much for reading. I'll have more posts coming soon so stay tuned. Happy reading! :)

No comments:

Post a Comment