Title: Dumplin’
Author: Julie Murphy
Genre: Young adult, Teen, Contemporary, Romance, Fiction
Number of Pages: 371
My Rating: 💋💋💋💋
Book Summary:
WITH STARRY TEXAS NIGHTS, RED CANDY SUCKERS, AND DOLLY PARTON SONGS, DUMPLIN’ IS GUARANTEED TO STEAL YOUR HEART.
Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin'” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American-beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked…until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.
Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet beauty pageant – along with several other unlikely candidates – to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City – and maybe herself most of all
My Thoughts:
This review is LONG overdue, but I am going to write it anyway.
I really enjoyed the movie for this novel, it is one of my favourites when I want a feel good yet emotional movie. Plus Jennifer Aniston is a gem in this movie along with Danielle MacDonald who plays the main character Willowdean. Just incredible acting on both parts, not to mention the rest of the cast is pretty talented as well. If you haven’t watched it, please give it a chance. I watched it on Netflix in Canada.
Since I adored the movie so much and found out it was based on a novel, well I had to read it! And honestly, completely worth the read. I loved the book because it gave more detail and background on characters that were a bit passed over in the movie, so it was a bit of a puzzle as to what was going on in their lives. And obviously there are some differences between characters in the book and the movie, meaning physical attributes, etc. But honestly, didn’t bother me in the slightest because that tends to happen when a novel gets created into a movie.
It was a great read, Willowdean is as outspoken, charming and conflicted as the movie, you really can’t help but love her and relate to her. It reminded me of a lot of feelings and experiences I had as a teenage. Between friendships, relationships, relationships with your parents and loss, it’s a roller coaster of emotions however I found it an easy read and pretty realistic on how life might be.
The novel was a quick and easy read once I actually was able to sit down and get into it. It was a really lovable and heartfelt novel and the author wrote it beautifully. I do highly recommend it if you want to read some young adult literature and something quick. Then definitely add it to your TBR list.
I know this was short and sweet, but I really don’t want to spoil anything. I do know the author has a second book that is based on some of the characters in this one, but not sure I’ll get to reading that at the moment. I’ve got a few novels on the works at the moment, crazy I know, but there are reasons. I’ll make a quick post about that after this.
Hope you enjoyed and keep an eye out for the next review which will be the novel We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer.
Ciao!
Mama on the Move 
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