Genre: YA Romancy?
Basic Summary: Willowdean fakes it until she makes it. She joins a beauty pageant as a type of f you to people.There’s also two boys who like her and she has a fight with her best friend.
Rating: 4/5
Warnings: None that I can think of? There is a guy who bullies others…
Review:
There’s a lot to like about Dumplin’. The main character is a girl who happens to be fat and she decides to enter in a beauty pageant after having Enough of Everyone. That’s a solid story on it’s own but there are other added elements: A love story between Willowdean and Bo as well as conflict between Willowdean and her best friend, Ellen.
If I had to put one thing I appreciated throughout this whole novel it’s the friendship and conflict between Willowdean and Ellen. They love one another so much and it shows in the pages. They are also dealing with each other having slightly different lives. As they grow older, it’s becoming clear to one another that they each are having separate experiences. This bothers the both of them because they’ve been so close for so long. And when they do fight, because Willowdean doesn’t want Ellen to enter the pageant with her, it goes on for a long time. How they resolved their fight and came to the same conclusion it’s okay to have a life apart from their friendship was nice to see. Their relationship mattered more to me than any other in the book.
While Ellen and Willowdean are fighting, Willowdean gains friends in the other girls who decide to join the pageant because she did. Amanda was, perhaps, my favorite character with her jokey comments and laid back attitude. It’s amazing to see a full cast of different girls. They each had their own personalities and were fleshed out. None of the characters felt flat to me.
The romance aspect of the book was just “okay” for me. It wasn’t, to me, anything extraordinary. Bo is a jerk. Then he’s not a jerk. (I was rooting for Mitch).
I do wish that the relationship between Willowdean and her mother was more resolved in the book like in the movies.
Overall, I love Dumplin’. Will definitely read the next book.
May you get lost in a book,
Chrissy