The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend

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 “Duffy,” she throws her Coke in his face.
But things aren’t so great at home right now. Desperate for a distraction, Bianca ends up kissing Wesley. And likes it. Eager for escape, she throws herself into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with Wesley.
Until it all goes horribly awry. It turns out that 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.

I honestly have no idea what you all saw in this book. It was, in my opinion, absolutely terrible.
Let’s start with the main character, Bianca. She’s a… Well, a word I can’t say on here. She says she hates Warner, then she decides to kiss him. And all of a sudden she wants to do more than just kiss him. A LOT more. Which would be fine, I have no problem with picking guys up at a club. What bothers me is that she constantly reminds him how much she hates him. They’re sitting on the bed barely dressed, while she tells him she hates him. If you hate someone that much, you shouldn’t be sleeping with them! How do you think he’s feeling? Yes, he sleeps around too, but he never claimed otherwise. He likes sleeping around. He likes feeling wanted by all the girls. She, on the other hand, keeps denying that she’s doing anything wrong. She thinks it’s totally fine, and totally normal, to sleep with someone and say you hate them. Oh, and to keep it a secret from everyone. And then she has the cheek to be annoyed when he flirts with other girls! If she wants a relationship, then that’s fine. If she wants a casual fling, that’s fine. But pick. Don’t expect him to treat her well while she hates him. And don’t keep it a secret. If it’s something to be ashamed of, why are you doing it? She should trust her best friends. They’re her friends for a reason, she shouldn’t be embarrassed of trusting them with a secret.
I don’t know how she ever thought she could get Toby. Toby was so perfect. He got great grades, he had a nice girlfriend (who he broke up with for such nice reasons), he never said a single bad word about anyone. Oh, he made me sick. No one is that perfect! And no one that perfect would put up with a girl who spent all her time daydreaming about another guy. He was bland and one dimensional, but he was still too nice for Bianca.
Warner was much better. Like I said before, he had his flaws, and he was okay with that. He was open about being someone who sleeps around. He called Bianca Duffy, and that was cruel, but that was just who he was.
The writing style could have made up for Bianca’s awfulness. But, unfortunately, that let me down too. It wasn’t the actual writing that was bad. It was all the unnecessary swearing. Every other sentence had a swear word in it. Yes, I get that teenagers do swear a lot. But I’m a teenager myself. I spend all day at school hanging around other teenagers. And yes, we swear, but not nearly as much as the people in this book. It wasn’t even subtle. It was like it shoved in there because Keplinger thought it was more realistic. Sentences like “F-ing maths” just aren’t necessary, or realistic.
I do like the moral of the book. We’re all Duffs. We all think poorly of ourselves, and compare ourselves to the superior girls around us. But I like subtle morals. This one was shoved in our faces, to make sure we walked away feeling better about ourselves. And yes, I liked that we were meant to feel like we weren’t alone in thinking so negatively about ourselves. But I was doing perfectly well reading between the lines and working that out for myself, before we were told that that was what Bianca had realised.
Overall, I’m pretty disappointed. I’ve been reading a lot of books recently that lived up to all the hype. But not this one. Not even slightly