Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For fans of John Green and Rainbow Rowell comes this powerful novel with the most fearless heroine—self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson—from Julie Murphy, the acclaimed author of Side Effects May Vary.

With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroine—Dumplin’ is guaranteed to steal your heart.

Dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom, Willowdean 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 Pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does.

Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

I loved this book, I have the hardback of it but I decided to listen to it and dip into the book as and when I wanted. To be honest, I am not sure why it took me so long to read/listen to it!

This story is about a beauty pageant, Dumplin' AKA Willowdean is slightly larger than her peers and her mother is a pageant winner and she has a passion for pageants. I wasn't really sure what was going to happen in this story, whether the plot would focus solely on beauty pageants or not. I really enjoyed that fact it was more about Willowdean and her journey. Willowdean is a really likable character and she has great confidence, this book is a lot about body confidence and how to accept yourself.

This was a really great YA, which has something for everyone. Listening to the audio book really bought the story to life, the narrator was perfect for it. She got the characters voices down to a tee, she also really made the characters feel real.

I would recommend listening to the audio book to help bring the story to life, it really did add to my enjoyment.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.