The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger

The DUFF: Designated Ugly fat Friend by Kody Keplinger

5 stars

Bianca Piper is you typical teenage girl. She has insecurities and who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is even if it hurts someone’s feelings. She hates going to the popular teen club, The Nest, that her friends have enjoyed dragging her along to and knows it only going to suck. Then Wesley Rush, man-whore of the school and total jerk comes up to her and makes her night even worse by labeling as the Duff. The girl that is the ugliest girl in the group and talked to only when guys want to pick up their hot friends is exactly what Bianca has feared she has been and always will be. As payback for calling her the Duff, she throws cherry Coke in his face like any pissed off girl would do. As Bianca struggles with family problems, she turns to Wesley for a distraction and surprisingly starts to care for him. Everything about this book was perfect for me. The characters were real and so was the language. I’ve seen a lot of reviews that are bothered by the constant profanities in this novel, but to tell you the truth compared to the kids I go to school with Bianca’s language isn’t that bad at all. In fact, the language doesn’t bother me at all because it’s real. Yes, teenagers curse and I know a lot of them say they don’t but they have said the infamous f-word at least once in their life. I appreciate what Keplinger was doing with this book and I love to read honest books where teens are portrayed in a real way and not in the way adults think. Let’s move on to the characters.


The main female character is Bianca. Bianca is a real, honest character that was easy to relate to. She wasn’t afraid to be herself and tell her honest opinion. Bianca is a cynic, but she’s an awesome cynic. She doesn’t drone on with cynicism and bore me; she created real emotion and had me agreeing with her a lot. Bianca is definitely one of my favorite characters in realistic fiction.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 9.5

The main male character is Wesley. Wesley is your typical man-whore, but I love a man-whore in books, in real life not so much. But Wesley was a downright jerk for about half the novel, but for some reason I couldn’t help but like him. Wesley isn’t meant to be the nice, sweet, nerdy guy; he’s supposed to the egotistical jerk that Bianca hates. IMHO I think he played the part well and in the end we saw a change in him and I still liked him.


Swoon Worthy Scale: 7.5

 
The Villain- There wasn’t a villain, really. Unless you consider Bianca’s own mind the villain.

Villain Scale: 3


Let’s talk about the supporting characters. Bianca’s friends Casey and Jessica are first on the list of discussion. Casey and Jessica are the type of friends every teenage girl is glad to have. They are there for you even when you wish they weren’t. I thought they were a good addition to the story. Then there’s the other guy that Bianca liked at the beginning of the book whose name I can’t remember. I’m going to look in the book real quick. Two minutes later. Ok I found his name. His name is Toby, you think I would remember that ‘cause I’m in love with Toby from PLL. This Toby was a borefest. Just saying I’m sure there were girls swooning over his nerdy niceness, but I just didn’t see anything in him. In fact he was a pretty lame character. The ‘hot’ scene he had with Bianca was just as unsatisfying as his character. Toby didn’t leave any impression on me and I’m glad Bianca didn’t waste too much time on him.


Character Scale: 8

I enjoyed The Duff and I want more Keplinger, but library seems to have crawled under a rock and not have any of her books. So I’ll have to buy them when I have money. This book was amazing and I just can’t stop gushing about how much I like it.


Cover Thoughts: The cover was one of the things that caught my attention about this book and made me check out the synopsis. I love the cover. I’m not sure what it is about it, I think it’s the layout, colors, and bubblegum, but I’m drawn to it.