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A review by nika_nix
Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
2.0
Here’s the thing. I didn’t like this book. At all. Which is surprising since this is YA contemporary and I always enjoy YA contemporary, no matter what. This one, I didn’t enjoy.
This was supposed to be a book about body-positivity and overcoming stereotypes. Also, it was supposed to be a beauty pageant book. The whole beauty contest comes to play only in the second half of the book. Everything that happens prior to that is just dragging the plot (is there even one?) and I guess it was supposed to be a way for us to get to know all the characters but to me, it was just boring. The idea of the book is great and I was really looking forward to it but the execution is terrible.
Characters were the worst part. I literally couldn’t stand any of them. None. Not even the love interest and I always like at least the love interest (I’m trash, I know). Willowdean (Will from now on because I’m lazy), our main character, is an extremely annoying person. I wanted to yell at her throughout the entire book, I was so frustrated with her. I get it, she’s insecure because of her weight and doesn’t think she’s attractive which I get, I was a bit chubby as well. However, she kept mentioning how she feels good in her own skin and doesn’t care what other people thinks but when a boy comes into the picture (two boys actually) and they both want to be with her, she chickens out and suddenly feels like she doesn’t deserve it. Girl, two boys are swooning over you, you don’t tell them to back of because you are all of a sudden ashamed of your body! I don’t get it, sorry. Instead of going from hating her body to accepting it she does the other way – from accepting it to hating it – and that is NOT the message this book is supposed to send.
The romance part of Dumplin’ wasn’t great either. First we have Bo, the guy Will has a crush on and his personality is just non-existant. The only thing I can tell you about his is that he’s hot and has a great butt. That’s literally it. His ans Will’s relationship was super unconvincing and random and I didn’t really understand why they were talking or not talking at a certain scene. Mitch, the other boy, reminded me of my ex-boyfriend way too much but for him I can at least say he was consistant. I understood him and thing he did, if nothing else. That doesn’t mean I liked him, though. But for personal reasons mostly.
Another thing that really bothered me “ugly girls club”. I called them that, it’s not really in the book. But Will made friends with other three girls who aren’t really considered pretty for different reasons and all of them decided to take part in the beauty pageant. Again, it’s not a bad concept but couldn’t there have been at least one of them who is average-looking girl, nothing explicitly “ugly” about her? Just to give it a little balance. This way the author is telling us that fat and not-in-a-usual-way pretty girls can hang out only with each other. It’s not true.
The only good thing about Dumplin’ is the diverse representation. As you already know, there are fat girls, but there is also a lesbian Dominican character as well as two trans gay characters. It was nice to get a bit diversity since it’s the only good thing about this book.
The ending was the biggest disappointment. I was hoping this book would redeem itself with some great ending but nope. When I read the last page, I couldn’t believe that’s it. This is how it ends? That bullshit. We didn’t get any answers and nothing was wrapped up. I feel like one chapter was missing – just one chapter where we find out how everything ends. If you haven’t read Dumplin’ and you plan to, skip to the next paragraph because there are going to be spoilers. I was so pissed that we didn’t find out if Will ended up with Bo or not but I was even more pissed that we don’t know who won the pageant. You can’t revolve the entire book around a beauty pageant and then not tell your readers who wins! I do appreciate it that Will didn’t win, that would be way to predictable and cliched.
To sum it all up, the concept of Dumplin’ is great and I was really looking forward to reading this book but it wasn’t written very well and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I hoped to. The author does explore some important topics and I can see all her good intentions but it just isn’t done well. I wouldn’t recommend it but who know, maybe you’ll like it. I didn’t.
This was supposed to be a book about body-positivity and overcoming stereotypes. Also, it was supposed to be a beauty pageant book. The whole beauty contest comes to play only in the second half of the book. Everything that happens prior to that is just dragging the plot (is there even one?) and I guess it was supposed to be a way for us to get to know all the characters but to me, it was just boring. The idea of the book is great and I was really looking forward to it but the execution is terrible.
Characters were the worst part. I literally couldn’t stand any of them. None. Not even the love interest and I always like at least the love interest (I’m trash, I know). Willowdean (Will from now on because I’m lazy), our main character, is an extremely annoying person. I wanted to yell at her throughout the entire book, I was so frustrated with her. I get it, she’s insecure because of her weight and doesn’t think she’s attractive which I get, I was a bit chubby as well. However, she kept mentioning how she feels good in her own skin and doesn’t care what other people thinks but when a boy comes into the picture (two boys actually) and they both want to be with her, she chickens out and suddenly feels like she doesn’t deserve it. Girl, two boys are swooning over you, you don’t tell them to back of because you are all of a sudden ashamed of your body! I don’t get it, sorry. Instead of going from hating her body to accepting it she does the other way – from accepting it to hating it – and that is NOT the message this book is supposed to send.
The romance part of Dumplin’ wasn’t great either. First we have Bo, the guy Will has a crush on and his personality is just non-existant. The only thing I can tell you about his is that he’s hot and has a great butt. That’s literally it. His ans Will’s relationship was super unconvincing and random and I didn’t really understand why they were talking or not talking at a certain scene. Mitch, the other boy, reminded me of my ex-boyfriend way too much but for him I can at least say he was consistant. I understood him and thing he did, if nothing else. That doesn’t mean I liked him, though. But for personal reasons mostly.
Another thing that really bothered me “ugly girls club”. I called them that, it’s not really in the book. But Will made friends with other three girls who aren’t really considered pretty for different reasons and all of them decided to take part in the beauty pageant. Again, it’s not a bad concept but couldn’t there have been at least one of them who is average-looking girl, nothing explicitly “ugly” about her? Just to give it a little balance. This way the author is telling us that fat and not-in-a-usual-way pretty girls can hang out only with each other. It’s not true.
The only good thing about Dumplin’ is the diverse representation. As you already know, there are fat girls, but there is also a lesbian Dominican character as well as two trans gay characters. It was nice to get a bit diversity since it’s the only good thing about this book.
The ending was the biggest disappointment. I was hoping this book would redeem itself with some great ending but nope. When I read the last page, I couldn’t believe that’s it. This is how it ends? That bullshit. We didn’t get any answers and nothing was wrapped up. I feel like one chapter was missing – just one chapter where we find out how everything ends. If you haven’t read Dumplin’ and you plan to, skip to the next paragraph because there are going to be spoilers. I was so pissed that we didn’t find out if Will ended up with Bo or not but I was even more pissed that we don’t know who won the pageant. You can’t revolve the entire book around a beauty pageant and then not tell your readers who wins! I do appreciate it that Will didn’t win, that would be way to predictable and cliched.
To sum it all up, the concept of Dumplin’ is great and I was really looking forward to reading this book but it wasn’t written very well and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I hoped to. The author does explore some important topics and I can see all her good intentions but it just isn’t done well. I wouldn’t recommend it but who know, maybe you’ll like it. I didn’t.