Dumplin'
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4.0 • 26 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Now a popular Netflix feature film, starring Jennifer Aniston, Danielle Macdonald, and Dove Cameron, as well as a soundtrack from Dolly Parton!
The #1 New York Times bestseller and feel-good YA of the year—about Willowdean Dixon, the fearless, funny, and totally unforgettable heroine who takes on her small town’s beauty pageant.
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 Clover City 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Given everything that’s wrong and dark in the world these days, it’s a true delight to read a book like Dumplin’. Julie Murphy’s story follows a Texan “fat-girl” named Willowdean Dickson, who rallies a group of misfits to enter the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet beauty pageant and contends with her complicated feelings for her mother, her best friend, and a handsome coworker named Bo. We fell in love with Murphy’s smart, sensitive, Dolly Parton–loving heroine. This is the kind of novel we wish had been around when we were teens: a funny, honest, and intelligent takedown of bullies, bigotry, and body-shaming and an empowering celebration of female bonds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
About the only thing Clover City has going for it is its beauty pageant, the oldest in Texas. It's run by Willowdean Dickson's mother a former winner who has a hard time with the reality that Willowdean, a self-described "fat girl," will never be a beauty queen. Willowdean is okay with her size, mostly, but with 10th grade ending and her best friend considering having sex with her boyfriend, Willowdean feels like she is being left on the wrong side of the experience divide. An unexpected kiss with Bo, her handsome fast-food restaurant coworker, is thrilling, but she's also horrified at the idea of him touching her anywhere there is extra flesh. And that very reaction horrifies her, too; she thought she was at peace with herself. Murphy (Side Effects May Vary) successfully makes every piece of the story Dolly Parton superfans, first love, best-friend problems, an unlikely group of pageant entrants, female solidarity, self-acceptance, and Willowdean's complicated relationship with the mother who nicknamed her "Dumplin' " count, weaving them together to create a harmonious, humorous, and thought-provoking whole. Ages 13 up.
