Author: Kody Keplinger
# of Pages: 280 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Rating:★★☆☆☆
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper may not be the prettiest girl in her high school, but she has a loyal group of friends, a biting wit, and a spot-on BS detector. She's also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush, who calls Bianca the Duff--the designated ugly fat friend--of her crew. But things aren't so great at home and Bianca, desperate for a distraction, 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.
Review: "I tried to convince myself that this was completely cheesy and ridiculous." -The Duff (Page 119).
Oh, don't worry; it doesn't take much to convince yourself of that in regards to this book.
When I saw this book in the bookstore, I purchased it because I had seen the trailer for the movie on TV. On the off chance that I decided I wanted to see the movie, I wanted to be prepared to read it before I watched it. However, I never went to see the movie, and I had to take a break from reading to concentrate on more pressing matters in my life. These brings us to today, in which I began to read recreationally again and picked up this book to start myself off.
I shouldn't have expected much from a book with the title "The Designated Ugly Fat Friend". But if there's a movie, it must have a quality story, right? Wrong. I should have known that if Fifty Shades of Grey got a movie, anything can.
This book is very superficial, for the lack of a better word. The plot is entirely romance-based, if you can even call it that (the relationship the two leads have is mostly physical...and incredibly unhealthy). The setting was your stereotypical high school filled with the jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, and any other stereotype you can think of. And of course everyone fit the image of their label; for example, Toby is suppose to be the "perfect" smart student , but he is described as "kind of scrawny with hardly any muscle" (225), fulfilling the traditional role of the "nerd".
Characters also lacked a unique voice, such as how various characters describe Bianca as "cynical" (such as Casey and Wesley) despite not associating with each other and how both Bianca's dad and Toby suggest the use of a "strongly worded letter" (the likelihood of two such people using the exact same word choice is very low).
The writing style in general is very sloppy. Keplinger does not provide enough description to make many of the moments in the book feel realistic enough/allow me to be absorbed into the book. One example is when Bianca's mother is speaking to her in the car; her mother goes from whispering to shouting in the snap of a finger, not to mention the usage of the verb "shouted" (124), which is weak in the context of the situation. This word does not articulate the way her mother is talking to her to the level I would have wanted.
Keplinger includes dialogue with acronyms in the lines "'WTF Bianca'" (156) and "'OMG, are you pregnant'" (188). If the character is saying the acronym as written (W-T-F and O-M-G), it's a poor choice of words (letters?). Although I have heard some say "oh em gee", almost no one says the acronym WTF in regular conversation. And if these acronyms were meant to represent the speaker saying "oh my god," it should have been written out because the way it is now seems amateur-ish.
Despite all of this, I was addicted to reading this book the same way people become addicted to cliché soap opera plots. I found many parts of the plot hilarious (whether this is intentional is unimportant to me) and therefore entertaining enough for me to consider rating it three stars (which I decided against doing because Cassandra Clare's TMI series is worlds better than this book).
In the end, I'd advise against reading this book. There are so many books out there that are more deserving of your time.
