Review: The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend)

Bianca is your average girl who just happens to be rather sassy with a complicated temper. She's living day after day in a small town surrounded by two best friends who are much more popular than her. One day she hopes to live in New York - but until then, she's stuck at home living a quiet existence with her dad while her mom travels the country as a motivational speaker.

Everything is fine, until things start coming undone; her mother wants a divorce, her father is drinking again and her ex, who broke her heart, is coming back into town. Now, all Bianca wants is to escape.


And that escape comes in the form of Wesley Rush, a gorgeous guy at her school who is known for being very popular with the girls. But what starts as a distraction evolves into something far beyond what Bianca expected.

***

The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) by Kody Keplinger completely drew me in. Bianca is not the perfect protagonist and in there lies the beauty of this story. No one is perfect and it's that description of the characters that leads you to believe that it could happen and probably has. I do believe that the book could have been a bit longer since there was a richness in the characters that could have been developed further - HOWEVER, that does not whatsoever deter from the actual story. The story touches several points, from alcoholism to divorce to sexual situations with teenagers, in a realistic and just utterly honest matter.

On that note, I feel the need to warn (just in case) the reader that there is an above average use of "curse" or "bad" words. I know that some readers are sensitive to that so I just wanted to mention it. I want to also mention, however, that the use of such words was done realistically to what one can assume the average teenager says and hears on an normal day in your average high school.