Book Review: The Duff by Kody Keplinger

Publisher: Poppy (Imprint of Little Brown)

Date Published: September 7th, 2010

Pages: 280 pages

Goodreads reviews: 3.93/5 (reviews)

            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.

The Duff is a wonderful young adult/contemporary romance book written by Kody Keplinger. It practically tells about the story of a 17-year-old girl named Bianca Piper who is this cynical, sarcastic, bitter girl who believes that ‘love is too strong a word and takes years upon years to develop (and definitely will not going to happen in high school)’. Then at a party which she came with two of her best friends, she was labeled as The Duff by the school hottie Wesley, or in Bianca’s world, the man whore. The Duff stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Wesley said that she should be proud of being one because not only that she makes her friends seems hotter, the Duff makes it easier for a guy/a girl to approach the ‘more attractive’ one in a group of friends. So what the guy/girl going to do is talk to the Duff so that they will look good in The Duff’s ‘more attractive friends’ eyes. And for calling her such thing, Bianca hates him even more. She tried not to bother about the whole Duff thing but after all she did. At the same time, Bianca’s family is quite in a dysfunctional situation and it’s complicated. She decided that what she needed at that time was an escape. As Bianca tends to keep all her feelings bottled up instead of open up to her friends, she accidentally kissed Wesley in one party(due to her complicated feelings about a lot of things and being emotional) and ended up being in a ‘enemy-with-benefits’ relationship with the man whore.

I’ve watched so many booktubers on YouTube recommended this book to their viewers and the first time I read the synopsis on goodreads,I was already knew that I’m going to like it (Plus, the cover is so beautiful). The plot is interesting and the story is wonderful. I know that so many people don't give this book a chance because the plot seems so general and ordinary but it doesn't even matter because the whole story is awesome. Bianca is described as this sarcastic, cynical girl who is so bitter and can’t wait to graduate from high school. She reminds me a lot of Kat from 10 Things I Hate About You. At times, she was kind of annoying for me because she just keeps running away from the truth and looking for an escape. She keeps denying her feelings and at some point she seemed so self-absorbed it can be very frustrating. She was technically a hypocrite for most of the time. But I really like her character for being so cynical it was actually very funny. I mean, even at her lowest point she still managed to keep being bitterly funny. I also like it how Kody Keplinger was able to make this ‘antagonist’ character that everyone was supposed not to like but eventually ended up loving or at least not able to hate. Wesley at times was such a jerk but it just didn’t make him ‘jerk’ jerk. He was actually very caring and cute. I can’t even describe how much I love Wesley by the end of the book. (Okay, I’m going to stop this talk about him because I don’t want to give away too much detail).

I find Kody Keplinger writing style is very easy to read and appealing. Though it is kind of different from Jenny Han’s writing style, whose writing style I also adore, hers makes you feel like you were listening to a friend’s story. For me, I have some ups and downs moments while reading this. At some moment in the book, I was like ‘WOW this book is so great I’m addicted to it’ but at some moment it made me like ‘well this was an OK book’. Anyway, every time I was in the ‘down moments’, I read a few more sentences or pages which made me all go ‘how wrong I was’. It managed to keep me wondering especially halfway through the end of book. It makes me feel like I know exactly what to expect next but at the same time I totally have no idea what’s going to happen. 

Another thing that I adore about this book is that it shows that everyone most of the time, at some point of their life, has ever felt the similar thing of what we are feeling right now. It reminds us that everyone has their own insecurities, no matter how perfect they seem. This makes the book became so relatable and quotable at the same time even though plot is not exactly new. In fact, it is even similar with most young adult/contemporary romance story. But Kody Keplinger is able to wrap such story in a brilliant, fresh idea which makes it so much more interesting to read. 

                Now, most of you probably have already known that The Duff is going to be a movie. In fact, the movie is going to be released on February 20. While it may look like a very appealing teen movie AS a movie, I am not so sure that it is going to give the book a justice. It looks so different from the book. I dislike how they added up a ‘mean girl’ character. I also dislike how they made it seem so much like it was just a remake of She’s All That, not that I dislike that movie. I know that book and movie is two different medias and should not be treated equally but I still wish they didn’t change so much. Let’s just cross our fingers that Ari Sandel, the director, could manage to keep it stick with the main plot of the book. I still have high hopes for the movie. Anyway, I have nothing to complain about the casting, even though I can’t recognize most of the character names in IMDB). Since I saw the trailer BEFORE I read the book, I’ve always pictured Robbie Amell (the guy who’s going to portray Wesley) as Wesley when I read the book. Plus, he’s so cute, am I right?! And Mae Whitman seems okay, or even good, portraying Bianca. By the way, you can check the trailer here, here and here.

                For this book, I would give it 5 out of 5 stars because despite that it is a teensy book, it has lots of good messages and quotes, which reminds me a lot of John Green, one my favorite author. Hell, I wish this book was much longer. It was such a light reading but I can’t believe it was over by the time I finished it. You’ll understand what I’m talking about if you just read the book by this time. So, that’s all my review for today. I'm sorry if it is a little bit long. I hope you guys enjoy this. Have a nice day!