≡ Libro Gratis The DUFF Designated Ugly Fat Friend Kody Keplinger Books

The DUFF Designated Ugly Fat Friend Kody Keplinger Books

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The DUFF Designated Ugly Fat Friend Kody Keplinger Books

My original thoughts of this book were not good -- it's very teeny bopper (even more so than most of the YA books that I read), but it did grow on me a little. I had a hard time liking any of the characters, and I still don't exactly understand the choices made in this book, but I'll admit that I kept reading.

You can predict pretty much everything that is going to happen from the start of the book. It seems like a bunch of chick flicks/books combined... Bianca is a grumpy girl who hangs out with the popular kids, but doesn't seem to think that she belongs when she is obviously not as pretty as everyone else (which is weird, considering her mom lectures people professionally about loving yourself). Half the things she does in this book don't make sense. It's like she's just not thinking at all, but thinking too much at the same time. I understand that the author was in her teens when she wrote this, so the seemingly random actions of the main character compared with the rash decisions makes more sense. The random introduction to Wuthering Heights nearing the end of the book paired with Bianca's end decision seems also a little silly. It's like Keplinger really wanted this book to be an insightful, feminist, unique take on relationships in high school, but it ended up just being overly predictable.

Again, I won't lie and say that I didn't like it. I was intrigued, and still wanted to finish. Wesley seemed extremely attractive to me, being that he's a jerk, but giving the opposing love interest a bowl cut and making him wear blazers to school just seems like a little much. I am interested in seeing how the movie interpreted the characters, but judging from the cover, it looks a LOT different.


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The DUFF Designated Ugly Fat Friend Kody Keplinger Books Reviews

Wow, did all the other reviewers here read the same book that I did?

I mean, I suppose I have nothing but good things to say about Kody Keplinger herself. I've looked at her blog and her website, and she's obviously smart, witty, and personable. She's a gifted writer - "The Duff" was accepted for publication when she was seventeen years old! - and I especially envy her ability to create a relatable, (mostly) realistic protagonist who isn't just a fictionalized version of herself. I'm excited to see how she develops as a writer in the future. Her second novel, "Shut Out," a modern high-school version of Aristophanes' "Lysistrata," is definitely on my to-read list, and I'm even intrigued by the published plot description for "Lying Out Loud," a semi-sequel "companion" to "The Duff" coming out later this year.

That said, I can't honestly recommend "The Duff," at least not to anyone within its target audience. I can't discuss why without getting into some pretty heavy spoilers eventually - some of the most problematic content appears on literally the last page of the novel - so be forewarned.

The novel opens with the protagonist, Bianca Piper, sipping a Cherry Coke and watching her friends dance at a local teen hotspot, when Wesley Rush, "the most disgusting womanizing playboy to ever darken the doorstep of Hamilton High," approaches her to start a conversation. She assumes he's hitting on her, and she isn't the least bit interested she's far too sensible and cynical to want anything to do with this arrogant, promiscuous creep - even if he does have "the body of a Greek god." However, it turns out he really *does* just want to chat. He informs her that "every group of friends has a weak link, a Duff," the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. "You, darling, are the Duff," he continues. "Girls - like your friends - find it sexy when guys show some sensitivity and socialize with the Duff. So by talking to you right now I am doubling my chances of getting laid tonight. Please assist me here, and just pretend to enjoy the conversation." To her credit, Bianca promptly stands up and throws the rest of her drink on him, then grabs her friends and leaves the club in a hurry. The next day, however, her friends want to go dancing again, and Bianca agrees to come along just to distract herself from the drama of her recovering-alcoholic father and increasingly-absent mother and their obviously crumbling marriage. When Wesley makes a second attempt to use her to impress her friends, she kisses him, apropos of nothing, for no discernible reason, and her mind goes blank "All of my thoughts vanished, and I became a sort of physical being. Emotions disappeared. Nothing existed but our bodies, and our warring lips were at the center of everything. It was bliss. It was amazing not to think." Afterwards, she is disgusted with herself. She is horrified when their English teacher assigns him as her partner for an assignment, but then her mother serves her father with divorce papers and he goes on a bender. Naturally, when Bianca goes over to Wesley's house to work on their essay, she pounces on him almost before they've had time to discuss a topic to write about. Wesley obligingly pulls out a condom. "When it was over, I felt dirty. I felt like I'd done something wrong and shameful, but at the same time, I felt good. Alive. Free. Wild. My mind was totally cleared, like someone had hit the refresh button. I knew the euphoria wouldn't last forever, but the filthy regret was worth the momentary escape." I'm pretty sure she meant to say that the momentary escape was worth the filthy regret, but at any rate, as her father starts holing up in his bedroom and missing work, she finds herself more in need of distraction than ever, and before long she's ditching the friends who genuinely care about her to slip off to Wesley's house three or four times a week.

This can't end well. I don't mean this might not end well, or this probably won't end well. I mean this CAN'T END WELL. Except that it does. Somehow, we're supposed to believe that Wesley is a sensitive guy under his arrogant posturing. You see, his parents are never home and his grandmother disapproves of his promiscuity, so he has a really hard life too, just like Bianca! And it turns out he's a really great listener, and he cares and he understands Bianca better than anyone and HELLO, this is NOT a sweet guy with just enough of a sexy bad-boy streak to create misunderstandings. This is a character who can't understand why the girl he just got through calling fat and ugly might not be particularly interested in facilitating his sex life. Even after they start getting to know each other a little better, he calls her "Duffy" more often than he uses her actual name. "You're pretty sexy when you're pissed at me, Duffy," he teases her, and although I can't decide whether that's a step up or a step down from describing an angry woman as "cute," I'm shocked that a self-proclaimed feminist writer would put such a sentiment in the mouth of her protagonist's romantic interest. What next, is he going to tell Bianca to go make him a sandwich? And lest you think that Keplinger meant to show Wesley coming to an awareness of the value of women as actual human beings, it's made explicitly clear on the last page that he hasn't. When Bianca informs Wesley, her newly-official boyfriend, that he is never to call her "Duffy" ever again, Wesley thinks to apologize for the first time "I'm sorry. I didn't know how much it hurt you. I should never have called you the Duff in the first place. I didn't know you then." He couldn't possibly have anticipated that a young woman might find it unpleasant to be saddled with a nickname implying she's unattractive? Then again, he seems to think that whether he knows a girl, or whether he likes her, is the determining factor in whether it's appropriate to address a girl the way he addressed Bianca in the opening chapter. I'll grant that by the time I was about halfway through the book, my feelings toward Wesley had changed from wanting him to suffer a horrible lingering death to wishing I could punch him in the face and deliver a stern lecture, but that's as far as he ever managed to redeem himself in my eyes.

This relationship is sick. Bianca knows it and struggles with it. Even Wesley seems to know it on some level, although he doesn't seem to care. Bianca repeatedly describes sex with Wesley as an intoxicant, an addiction. She keeps their hookups secret from her friends, turns to him more and more as time passes, loathes him but finds herself counting down the hours until her next "fix." Eventually, she decides it's time to face her problems head-on instead of distracting herself from them, which means "quitting Wesley. Unfortunately, there were no weekly meetings, no sponsors, or twelve-step programs for what I was addicted to." (On a side note, how on earth did this novel get into print without once passing under the eyes and pen of someone who knows how Alcoholics Anonymous actually works? They don't have "weekly meetings." Many recovering alcoholics, even those who have years of sobriety under their belts, attend several meetings a week. Bianca's father, getting back into the program after falling off the wagon, would probably find it essential to go *every day*.) The suggestion that a healthy romance could arise from such beginnings as this is problematic in itself, and to suggest that it could happen without both partners seriously and consciously committing to making some huge and difficult changes is downright irresponsible. Then again, Keplinger doesn't even try to sell this as a healthy relationship, even within her protagonist's own private thoughts. "We were both pretty [screwed] up," Bianca reflects of herself and Wesley in the second-to-last paragraph of the novel. "Somehow, though, that made everything more exciting. Yeah, it was sick and twisted, but that's reality, right? Escape is impossible, so why not embrace it?" That goes beyond problematic and irresponsible. That crosses the line into downright dangerous.

There's a good message somewhere in all this, a message about self-worth and openness and how even the people who seem to have it all together struggle with insecurities of their own. However, these positive messages were drowned out for me by the glorification of an unhealthy relationship. I could go on - I could discuss at some length the implications that sexual chemistry is more important to a satisfactory relationship than mutual respect. I could point out that, whereas Kirkus Reviews is probably quite accurate that "The Duff" portrays "a complex, enemies-with-benefits relationship that the YA market has never seen before," the "special snowflake/reformed rake" and "I can't stand you but I can't keep my hands off you" tropes have been staples of the trashy-romance genre for decades and really are better off staying there in the realm of fantasy rather than being served up to impressionable kids (let's be honest, there are a lot more eleven-year-olds than seventeen-year-olds who want to read a story about high school) in a novel reviewers have described as "honest." Still, I think I've said enough. It doesn't give me any great pleasure to point out the dangerous messages in a novel, written by such an amazing young author, which so many young people have claimed helped them triumph over their insecurities with confidence. I hope Kody Keplinger will continue to write, and to be read, for many decades to come, and that someday "The Duff" will be remembered only as an awkward but crucial artifact in her development.
4.5 Duffy stars!!!

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

OMIGOSH YOU GUYS! I loved this book!! Like seriously, I kind of can't believe how much I loved a book that literally means "ugly fat friend".

Over the years I've seen this book in passing, in the library, bookstores, and lists titled "Best Book Boyfriends". I never picked it up because come on. Look at the title. Now look at the cover. Based on those two things, would you read it? Well this is an extreme case of don't judge a book by its cover... or its title.

Bianca is a cynical girl, but her friends don't mind it. They love her for who she is. One night when all three are out, Bianca finds herself near the school manwhore Wesley, who proceeds to educate her on the fact that she is the Duff. Designated Ugly Fat Friend. This title makes Bianca's head spin, and she goes into a small identity crisis. On top of that, things aren't so good with her parents and her life around her is falling apart. Assigned to work on a project together, Bianca and Wesley end up having a secret friends with benefits relationship, both trying to escape their crappy real lives.

As I stated before, I loved this book. Because it surprised me. Bianca was a character I loved so much. She was ridiculously cynical, and I guess maybe I am too because most of the time when she would say something, I'd be sitting there nodding my head and going "hey, I would say that!"

And this book had some seriously funny moments and dialogue in it. For example

“Spanish, huh?" he said, glancing down at the scattered papers as he grabbed them. "Can you say anything interesting?"
"El tono de tu voz hace que queria estrangularme." I stood up and waited for him to hand over my papers.
"That sounds sexy," he said, getting to his feet and handing me the stack of Spanish work he'd swept together. "What's it mean?"
"The sound of your voice makes me want to strangle myself."
"Kinky.”

“Your sense of humor needs some work, then," Wesley suggested. "Most girls find my jokes charming."
"Those girls must have IQs low enough to trip over.”

“I mean, there is a reason its initials are VD. I bet you more people contract syphilis on Valentine's Day than on any other day of the year. What a cause for celebration.”

Despite having a sense of humor, this book also dealt with serious teen issues. Bianca's parents were going through a divorce and her dad was becoming less and less present, and she didn't know how to deal with it. Bianca's former jerk of an ex-boyfriend shows up in town with his new fiance. Wesley's parents are always gone and his crone of a grandmother won't let him see his sister. Lots of teen drama rama.

The other things that surprised me about this book? There was so much sex! Like from the beginning. Would you look at this hot pink and yellow cover and think you were in for a large round of young adult fade to black? Not me! It was kind of refreshing to read a teen book and have it be realistic about what teens are experiencing in real life.

And Wesley. *sigh* I loved that guy. Like, he was such a freaking jerk in the beginning, but like Bianca, the more I saw him in the book I couldn't help but swoon over his arrogant butt. I agree with the list, he's a great book boyfriend.

“Don’t lie to yourself because you think it’s safer. Reality doesn’t work like that."

At the end of the day, everyone who reads this review is going to read whatever the heck they want. I'm the same way. But, I encourage you to ignore the title and cover, and to read this gem of a book.
My original thoughts of this book were not good -- it's very teeny bopper (even more so than most of the YA books that I read), but it did grow on me a little. I had a hard time liking any of the characters, and I still don't exactly understand the choices made in this book, but I'll admit that I kept reading.

You can predict pretty much everything that is going to happen from the start of the book. It seems like a bunch of chick flicks/books combined... Bianca is a grumpy girl who hangs out with the popular kids, but doesn't seem to think that she belongs when she is obviously not as pretty as everyone else (which is weird, considering her mom lectures people professionally about loving yourself). Half the things she does in this book don't make sense. It's like she's just not thinking at all, but thinking too much at the same time. I understand that the author was in her teens when she wrote this, so the seemingly random actions of the main character compared with the rash decisions makes more sense. The random introduction to Wuthering Heights nearing the end of the book paired with Bianca's end decision seems also a little silly. It's like Keplinger really wanted this book to be an insightful, feminist, unique take on relationships in high school, but it ended up just being overly predictable.

Again, I won't lie and say that I didn't like it. I was intrigued, and still wanted to finish. Wesley seemed extremely attractive to me, being that he's a jerk, but giving the opposing love interest a bowl cut and making him wear blazers to school just seems like a little much. I am interested in seeing how the movie interpreted the characters, but judging from the cover, it looks a LOT different.