Rowena’s review of The DUFF by Kody Keplinger.
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.
I read this book right before the movie came out in theaters because, well, that’s just something that I like to do. I finished the book and thought it was pretty good. The difference between the movie and the book was that the movie focused more on the label DUFF than I thought the book did. The book, to me, was more of a contemporary YA romance between Wes Rush and Bianca Piper and that’s fine. I enjoyed their romance.
So this book follows Bianca Piper as she tries to deal with problems at home. Mainly, her Mom being away for a long time and her Dad struggling with trying to stay sober when the love of his life (her Mom) wants a divorce. Bianca isn’t equipped to deal with her Dad’s alcohol issues and what she feels at first as her Mom’s abandonment so to escape her problems, she jumps into a f*ck buddy relationship with the school man-slut, Wesley Rush. The guy that called her, The DUFF.
I call it a f*ck buddy relationship and not a friends with benefits relationship because Bianca HATES Wes. She hates that he’s a man-whore and she hates pretty much everything about him but when she kisses him and then continues to kiss him and then sex him, it allows her to escape everything that waits for her at home. So she does him every chance that she can and in between all of the sex (there’s a lot of sex in this contemporary YA book), they get to know each other and as much as Bianca wants to fight it, she develops feelings for Wesley and that screws her all up because her real crush, the guy that she absolutely loves? Toby Tucker? Yeah, he starts showing interest in her.
For a DUFF, she sure did get a lot of action in this book. Ha.
This book was well written and it was mature (what with all of the casual sex being had throughout the book) but still a lot of fun. Bianca was a great main character with a very likable voice (even when she was getting on my nerves) and I thought that Wes was a total dick but he completely grew on me as the story wore on. It was a quick read and it was a lot of fun too. I liked it but if you watched the movie and want to read the book, don’t expect the same story because you aren’t going to get it.
Grade: 4 out of 5
This book is available from Poppy. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.
