Dumplin'
Ratings39
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings39
Average rating3.6
Sixteen-year-old Willowdean wants to prove to everyone in her small Texas town that she is more than just a fat girl, so, while grappling with her feelings for a co-worker who is clearly attracted to her, Will and some other misfits prepare to compete in the beauty pageant her mother runs.
Series
3 primary books4 released booksDumplin' is a 4-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2015 with contributions by Julie Murphy.
Reviews with the most likes.
Dumplin' is the book I needed as a teenager. I related so much to Willowdean that it hurt. Everything that she thought was what I thought as a teenager. This book made me ache in the best way and I truly cannot stop thinking about it and crying. It's so well written. I didn't want to put it down and so I didn't. It's beautiful and a little too real. It's uncomfortable sometimes and that's the point. Please read this gorgeous book. This is probably the worst review ever but I can't put thoughts together because I just keep crying.
P.s. I'm now slightly obsessed with Dolly Parton and big hair.
I'm a little older than the target audience for this young adult book, but I found it mostly pretty charming. I thought Willowdean was a well-rendered teenage girl, full of contradictions, but her relationship with Bo was too flat to really center the narrative the way it might have.
Marketed as a “body-positive” book but it's not close to that. Accurate small town representation and decent supporting characters, but nothing very fresh here.
