Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

Oh my goodness! I loved Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy.  I loved, loved it.  

 

This book is girl power on steroids.  Willowdean is great!  Will is a beautiful character.  She is witty and introspective and loves Lucy and Dolly Parton fiercely.  She is small-town warm and smart.  She is everything I wish I could have been when I was growing up awkwardly in that small town where everyone knows everything about you.  

Of course, she is struggling.  She wrestles with weight, and naturally, her mother is a slim beauty pageant alum. who just so happens to run the local (a very big deal in a small Texas town) beauty pageant.  Picture Willowdean with a bag of chips.  Now, picture the look on her mom’s razor-thin face of perfection.  Yep, that is Will’s relationship with her mom.  Maybe out of spite, or maybe out of reverence to her recently deceased, favorite aunt, Lucy, Will gathers a posse of other so-called misfit girls who want to show the world that anyone can be beautiful, and they enter the pageant.  That decision costs her a lot.  Does she find that it was worth it?  Does she win?  Read it to see.

Wait, if that is not enough to entice you.  What about romance?  Pick-up truck, high-school-making-out kind of steamy romance.  Imagine it, that picture-perfect hunk of a guy from the private school flipping burgers every night with you at your after-school job.  He’s beautiful; he’s perfect, and he is hot for Will.  She wants him so badly, but can she find the confidence to go for it?  Will she be able to overcome her perception that the fat girl never gets the hot guy?  Read it to see. 

I am so thankful to Julie Murphy for writing this book.  The story and characters are engrossing.  I loved and hated them every step of the way.  I was up and down as the plot unfolded.  Those are all of the feelings that I, as a reader, want when living through contemporary realistic fiction.  I want to be there with the characters.  I want to feel their pain and revel in their triumphs and feel the butterflies in my stomach as new romance emerges.  I cannot wait for other girls to find power through Will’s story.  It is such a great read.      

Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy, 375 pages from Balzer + Bray, HaperCollins (2015). ISBN # 978-0-06-232718-5

Ideal for female, teen readers (and old women like me who want to be a teen again)