Book Review: The Duff by Kody Keplinger

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.

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Oh man. Am I ever late to this particular shindig.

About four years to be exact. I remember when this book blew up on the BookTube and blogging community. It seemed like every time I pulled up a video, someone was talking about this. I was generally interested in reading it, but other books just seem to pop up out of no wheres and take precedence.

So… I was scrolling through Netflix the other night and saw that they were streaming the movie. I was taking a break from blogging so I decided to watch it. I. Absolutely. Loved. It.

So of course, when the movie was over, I hopped over to my bookshelf to see if I still had my copy that I bought forever ago. I was kind of terrified that I handed it off to my cousins during my annual bookshelf purge(which are amazing to do, btw. 10 outta 10 would recommend).

Luckily, this is one book that I still hung on to, hoping, one day, I would read it.

I devoured it.

I’m not sure I moved my ass off my couch for the majority of the day. As soon as I started reading I fell head over heels for Bianca. She was an extremely sarcastic, smart-mouthed character and I loved her for it. She dished out more shit to Wesley than he could dish back and it was perfect.

Their relationship was that perfect blend of hatred and steam.  You could really feel the tension between them. The only thing I like more than friends-to-lovers is hate-to-love. I honestly cannot get enough of it. BUT, it has to be realistic and this was 100% realistic.

One thing that got to me was that this book ended up becoming so much deeper than just a highschool romance. Everything with her father, in particular, really made me love Bianca even more. Of course, it also furthered her relationship with Wesley, but it was oh so very sweet that I can’t even be mad about it.

Ugh. I could gush about this book for hours. I didn’t even get into everything about the body positivity and the use of slut, whore, ect, ect. If you were ever hesitant about reading it, don’t be. It may look cheesy and the cover may be god-awful but it’s seriously an amazing book.

Until next time,