My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“No matter where you go or what you do to distract yourself, reality catches up with you eventually.”
----Kody Keplinger, The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend
Kody Keplinger, the American YA author, completely enthralled our minds with her debut teenage drama, The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend , which is about teenage issues like friendships, image issues, boy drama etc, presented in such a way by the author that it makes you revisit that period of your life when emotions ran high and friendships mattered the most above everything and for teenagers, this is an ideal book, since they can completely relate to all the issues.
Synopsis:
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.
Bianca is a snarky 17year old high school girl, who is smart and her friends love her for her cynicism about almost everything. But on the night when Bianca finds herself face-to-face with the playboy of her school, Wesley, who the had the nerve to coin her as DUFF- Designated, Ugly, Fat Friend, things go haywire and Bianca goes made over her image issues. In addition to that, things are not going well in her home among her parents and her life is in a complete mess. Nevertheless, when Bianca and Wesley are designated together to work on a school friends, things become much hotter between them as they both agree to be in a enemies-with-benefits-relationship to escape their lousy real lives.
The plot is not something that will keep you on an anticipating mode all the time or neither it'll intrigue you with it's multi-layered storyline, instead the characters of this book will completely keep you glued to the book till it's very end. It's very rare that you come across a book where the plot is not something to cherish about whilst the primary as well as the secondary characters are there to charm your mind. Keplinger wrote it while she was a teenager just like Bianca and I can't believe from such an elegant prose that this book is written by someone so young. Being a debut book, it doesn't take away any charm from Keplinger's articulate writing style or thought-provoking and engaging narrative style. The narration of this book is the plus point of this book. Keplinger told this story just like any 17 year old girl who is insecure about her image would narrate her life story- in short, striking yet giving us, the readers, space to see the story in our own perspective too. The author have even layered her plot with funny antidotes here and there thus making the whole reading experience for us, the readers a witty and entertaining one.
The issues that are addressed in this book are pretty solid and real. Teenagers facing problems due to their parent's divorce or one parent becoming less persistent in a teenager's lives, ex-boyfriend trouble, parents always staying out-of-town, siblings issues. These issues are very real and almost every teenager can relate to them. Not only that, the author have also shown how to handle these difficult issues with love and care and a positive attitude. Moreover, the way she addressed them is pretty sensitive and with enough compassion. In addition to that, the author have intricately layered them in her storyline, thus letting us feel those problems with not only by our mind but also by our heart.
The characters, Bianca is an epitome of every teenage girl going through this phase of life when certain decisions and problems come gawking at you irrespective of your age. We all used to judge at this age when our hormones used to run high. Bianca's friends are also very much real and vivid. Wesley might remind you of that guy in your school who every girl used to fall for and you secretly had a crush on him, yes he strikes me as the perfect boyfriend material who loved to break millions of hearts with not only by his looks but also by this flirty demeanor, who you would love to hate him.
Warning: There is lot of sex! Moreover, from the very beginning, things get heated up. The way the author explained those scenes are really brilliant with ample of depth and passion thus making us feel it's warmth from it's very pages.
I hope the movie is as good as the book is. My hopes are really running high for it's screen adaption starring Mae Whitman as Bianca and Robbie Amell as Wesley, releasing in the month of February.
Verdict: Don't miss to read this brilliant teenage drama before the movie hits the screens.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author Info:
View all my reviews
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your feedback!