The Duff Review

The DUFF
by Kody Keplinger
From Goodreads:

 Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “the Duff,” she throws her Coke in his face.

But things aren’t so great at home right now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it. Eager for escape, Bianca throws herself into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with him.
Until it all goes horribly awry. It turns out Wesley isn’t such a bad listener, and his life is pretty screwed up, too. Suddenly Bianca realizes with absolute horror that she’s falling for the guy she thought she hated more than anyone.

My Thoughts: My good, good, good friend Courtney was sweet enough to send me the audio book of The DUFF to listen to, and I'm eternally grateful.  It might not seem like it, since it took me months to finally get around to listening to it (mostly because I misplaced it), but I am thankful.

The DUFF is funny, raunchy and sexy.  This books make me realize that I was a nun during my teenage years.  Where was my Wesley Rush?  For that matter, where was my Toby Tucker?  Of course I was a teenager in the early and mid 90's so I'm assuming all the hot smex revolution happened after I graduated in 1995.  Although, I don't know if I could handle a Wesley Rush now, and I'm sure the Hubs would have his objections.

So Bianca is a great character- she's flawed and normal and snarky. She's a bit oblivious at times, too wrapped up in the drama of her home life to realize what her friends are going through. But aren't we all guilty of that sometimes?  My main problem with it is that it doesn't seem normal for her not to have spilled her secrets to her bff's.  I tell Courtney everything, and when she won't answer the phone, I tell her voicemail everything.  Which works out better sometimes, since voicemail allows me to vent without pause.

The DUFF reminds me of an 80's movie, Wesley would be played by some hot actor, a perfect blend of Rob Lowe's hotness and James Spade's rich boy attitude.  Bianca could be Jennifer Gray or Mare Winningham (did you even know she was a brat packer?  Because she is in St. Elmo's Fire but she's already playing grandmother characters now.  I feel so old), or Ally Sheedy.  Bianca's friends would be played by Demi Moore and Mia Sara.  Soundtrack by OMD, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Cure, the Bangles and Rick Aster.  See how perfect it could be?  Yeah, there's an awful lot of sex for a 1980's movie, but it was the decade that brought up Porky's.

I listened to the audio, which was a bit off due to the long pauses between sentences and paragraphs, but overall it was enjoyable.  A few storylines, like the one with Bianca's dad, and Jessica finding out about her brother, were tied up a little too neatly, but that's really being picky on my part.  Because I love this book, and eventually I will purchase my own physical copy (or at least on Kindle) so I can get my Wesley fix when I need it.

The DUFF gets a Midnight Book Rating of:

The cover gets a Midnight Book Cover Rating of:

It's cute, but it doesn't look like my vision of Bianca, and a pic of a girl rolling her eyes or sipping Cherry Coke would have been more fitting.  Still, it's eye catching and I like it.