Book Review: The DUFF by Kody Keplinger

The DUFF – Kody Keplinger

*Warning – may contain spoilers*

Author: Kody Keplinger

Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books

First published: 2010

Edition: Paperback with movie cover

Pages: 341

Blurb:    Seventeen-year old Bianca Piper may not be the prettiest girl at school, but she has a loyal group of friends, biting wit, and a spot-on BS detector. She’s also too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut Wesley. But when he casually refers to Bianca as the Duff of her crew – the designated ugly fat friend – the gloves are off!

But things aren’t so great at home and Bianca, desperate for a distraction, ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it, and before she knows it she’s in a secret enemies-with-benefits relationship with him.

Until it all goes horribly wrong. 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.    

History of my copy: I picked up The DUFF at a charity book sale for only 50p. It’s not my usual sort of book, but I received a copy of the film so I knew I had to read it before watching it…

I only took 5 days to read The DUFF, which is pretty good going for me! With uni and work, I don’t have much time to read so I’m quite impressed with how quick I read it.

Plot: The basic plot of this book is that Bianca ends up secretly getting with Wesley, a complete douche who has always been a bit mean to her. Lo-and-behold, then end up falling for each other, since they used to be good friends when they were younger. It’s simply a straight forward, generic story of a ‘complicated’ high school romance.

Setting: The book is set in America and I don’t think there was anything particularly remarkable about it.

Characters: To be quite honest, none of the characters really stood out. Bianca was okay as a character, had a bit of depth, but her narrative got annoying quickly. All attempts to make Wesley a little more 2D just seemed to make him even more cliché than before.

To read or not to read: Don’t read. Whilst a small part of me enjoyed the book as an easy-to-read, high-school romance, it was certainly nothing special.