For fans of John Green and Rainbow Rowell comes this powerful novel with the most fearless heroine-self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson-from Julie Murphy, the acclaimed author of Side Effects May Vary. With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroine-Dumplin' is guaranteed to steal your heart. Dubbed "Dumplin'" by her former beauty queen mom, Willowdean has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American-beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked ...until Will takes a job at Harpy's, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn't surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back. Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself.
So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant-along with several other unlikely candidates-to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she'll shock the hell out of Clover City-and maybe herself most of all.
So I'm giving this book three stars. It was a fine read, and I loved that Willowdean was fat, and didn't just magically get skinny, but also? Willowdean didn't love herself and that's where the book fell down for me. I wanted Willowdean to ROCK being fat, to love herself, to not care what people say or think because she was comfortable in her own skin, and she wasn't. I mean I get that. I'm bigger than I would like to be, and I'm doing something about that, but I thought this book was about loving yourself no matter what, and Willowdean never did that, or maybe that's just my perspective on it?
Willowdean was also quite mean to the girls who eventually become her friends, or something similar. Hannah, Amanda and Millie. They were LOVELY, and Willowdean was actually quite harsh about all three, which seems counterproductive since she herself KNOWS what it's like to be fat-shamed. So why would you do it? I get that we're all like that sometimes, but really? I just think that you can't expect people to be nice to you, if you're not nice about other people.
I also really wanted Willow's mom to just stop her own body-shaming of Willow because it made me cringe, and she never apologised or anything.
The book had it's okay parts and if you don't shine your light too brightly on it, it's a cute read, but it wasn't what I wanted or expected.
