Books for Young People: Dumplin'

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Author: Kyla Sterling

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Willowdean is a big girl. Not just a "chubby" girl either, but a genuine, bona-fide big girl. And, for most of her life, she's been okay being big. She has a strong relationship with her best friend, a staunch supporter in her aunt, and Dolly Parton's music to get her through anything. Her size has never held her back.

Until now.

Now her aunt is gone - died suddenly of a heart attack brought on by her obesity. Her mother is busy with the legendary "Miss Teen Bluebonnet" pageant and doesn't quite know how to deal with her daughter without the help of her sister. And her best friend, Ellen, has a job at a "skinny people" store, is making new friends, and is taking her relationship with her boyfriend to a new level, and Willowdean is starting to feel left out. Sure, she has a job, and a *gorgeous* guy who can't seem to keep his eyes off her, but what happens when being attractive to a guy...suddenly makes you feel unattractive?

Faced with these changes, Willowdean starts to doubt herself - and she needs to find a way to reclaim her confidence. Did someone say Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant? That sounds like just the ticket...or does it?

Willowdean is not the easiest protagonist to love. She's wishy-washy, judgmental, and downright hypocritical at times. She makes dumb choices that will have you yelling at the book, and she has a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Your mileage may vary on whether that makes her more realistic or more cringeworthy. But as she progresses through the plot, she starts to grow up, and begins to realize that she doesn't have all the answers she thought she did.

Personally, I found Willowdean incredibly relatable. For most of my life, I've been the girl who would never be called skinny but usually not the biggest person in the room. I've had discussions with my mother identical to the ones Willowdean has with hers. (In all honesty, when Willowdean remembers overhearing her mother talk to her best friend about someday entering the pageant, I cried.) I've been friends with girls who were conventionally attractive only to watch the relationship wither as one or both of us grew in different directions. And yes, I have stepped WAY out of my comfort zone and entered something like a beauty pageant. So I was biased to like Willowdean from the start, even if I did want to throw the book at the wall a couple of times.

The plot itself is a bit on the slow side - we don't even get to the pageant business until quite a ways into the book, after Willowdean has already dug herself into a few huge holes. But once she gets there, things begin to move on a little more coherently. Sort of. There are a *lot* of day-in-the-life scenes that don't seem to do much to advance anything. There is SO MUCH ANGST over boys - both the one at work who makes her feel desirable and hideous at the same time as well as the one she feels like she "should" want, but doesn't. Honestly, nothing will make a reader more angry than watching Willowdean string this poor boy on because she doesn't know how to say no to things.

But overall, I think there are some good lessons to be found here - and not all of them from Willowdean. She may be the one who starts the "revolution" at the pageant, but it's the three girls who join her who really shine at the book's climax. And I think that might be just what Willowdean really needed to happen.

Things to know: This one is pretty clean. There's a lot of kissing and petting, and some discussion about sex (although that happens offscreen). I don't recall any drinking or drug use (the girls do go out to a nightclub, but don't drink). There is a drag queen, and she was one of my favorite characters. There is a teeny bit of violence when Willowdean gives the school bully a satisfying kick in the family jewels. The most objectionable thing I really found is some of the body positivity discussion - Willowdean both judges the girls who are bigger than she is as well as borders on skinny-shaming a few times as a defense mechanism, though is eventually called out on it. I also hated the love triangle (because she doesn't communicate to either boy that there *is* a love triangle).

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