Review: The DUFF by Kody Keplinger

My edition: Paperback, published in 2011 by Poppy, 288 pages.

Description: 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.

Review:

The first half of this book was just terrible. How the main character can possibly turn towards the one guy who keeps hurting her by using the word "DUFF" and have meaningless sex (at that age!) to get rid of all her so-called big problems were beyond me; I really thought it gave a wrong message to young girls.

However, about midway through I actually started to like Bianca and her story developed in such a way that I could finally understand why she felt the way she did. Of course it helped that the "mean" boy predictably turned into a very sweet and considerate guy and in the end all was well for everyone.

The DUFF is not the most extraordinary piece of literature every produced but surely entertaining enough and admirable for the fact that it was written by a 17 year-old.

6.5/10