by Kody Keplinger
Published on September 7th 2010
Little Brown/Poppy, 280 pages
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.
- Goodreads.com description
“I was the Duff. And that was a good thing. Because anyone
who didn't feel like the Duff must not have friends.
Every girl feels unattractive sometimes. Why had it
taken me so long to figure that out? Why had I been
stressing over that dumb word for so long when it
was so simple? I should be proud to be the Duff.
Proud to have great friends who, in their minds,
were my Duffs.”
This is a YA book, and I've been meaning to read it for a while now, like years. And even though I've been having some troubles with YA these days (man, I am getting old!), I am happy to say that this was not the case.
The DUFF was an excellent read, with real life struggles, a believable main character, and with realistic dramatic events. I loved this book so much!
Bianca is awesome. Literally awesome. Her sense of humour combined with her cynicism made her an entertaining main character and fairly easy to relate to. I loved how she always tried to rationalise her choices and decisions. And when she obviously failed, she admitted it.
Wesley. Ah, the playboy. While I am pretty sure he must have been exaggerating about his sexual encounters with a different girl every day, his behaviour didn't put me off. Usually, I don't like self-absorbed assholes, but Wesley struck me as someone who no matter under which pretenses, he genuinely cared about Bianca.
The writing was also very good. I couldn't put this book down! It's fast paced, and you are never too old to pick this book up, cause yeah, it's that good! The book revolved around real-world-real-life issues, and it was believable. The main character is relatable, and her friends are really the people you'd like to surround yourself with. Definitely not the ones that stab you in your back.
All in all, this book is made of awesome, and you should definitely pick it up!
