Review: Dumplin'

Willowdean Dickson has come to terms with being fatter than her peers...some of the time. It's not always easy with a thin and beautiful best friend and a former pageant queen mom who still works for the pageant each year. Will goes to work, goes to school, and just tries to live the normal life of a teenager. When a handsome co-worker at her job starts to take interest in her, Will's feeling of insecurity come out full force. Does he really like her? If he does, why are they keeping their relationship a secret from everyone else? In a moment of temporary insanity, she decides to enter the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet beauty pageant and prove to herself and everyone that she is just as capable and deserving of wearing a swimsuit, showing off a talent, and being seen and admired by everyone in her small Texas town.

Willowdean is a gem of a character. She is beautifully realistic. She makes dumb choices. She makes smart choices. She apologizes for her mistakes. She is hilarious. She is unsure about herself. While there is a romance in this story, the great thing is that Willowdean is not defined by her relationships. Having a crush or making a new friend or even seeing things differently than her mother does not change who she is. 

I sometimes look through some other people's reviews after I have finished a book to see if they loved or hated a book as much as I did. I was rather shocked to see a lot of readers railing against this book because Willowdean can be just as unkind to other kids as they are to her. As the book progresses, she gains some new friends in other girls who don't fit into the narrow box of "thin, gorgeous, straight, and able-bodied." And yes, at first, she is dismissive or mean in her head to those same girls. But I think we all do that. Even if Julie Murphy wrote Willowdean as "body-positive," it's not something that is perfect or consistent. She thinks that her body is great, except when she doubts it. She snickers at the perceived flaws of other students, but the point is that she does eventually befriend them. Being "body-positive" doesn't mean we don't notice what makes people different from us. It's that we don't let it define them or our relationships with them.

Dumplin' is a fantastic book. It's as funny and self-assured as Willowdean herself proves to be. This story reminds us that we are not what others think of us, whether we are teenagers or adults. In a world of seemingly endless cruelty, we need books like this to remind us to be kind to each other. It turns out we aren't as different as we might think.


Dumplin'
By Julie Murphy
384 pages
Balzer + Bray September 2015
From the library

24 Hour Readathon Fall 2015: The Second Twelve

 

The End!

Which hour was most daunting for you? Around 11 p.m., I think, which was hour 15 or so for us. The kids were sleeping, the house was quiet, and husband was getting ready to go to bed. It was hard not to give in to the pull of sleepy time!

Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Dumplin' was a great choice this year. I always recommend Saga to readers looking for comics, and Glaciers to people who want that feeling of accomplishment from finishing a short book!

Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? As always, I leave things in the capable hands of our fearless leaders. You guys rock!

What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? Everyone seemed very prepared and ready to run on so many platforms - blogs, twitter, instagram, Goodreads, etc.
 
How many books did you read? Four
 
What were the names of the books you read?
Dumplin', Submerged, Ms. Marvel Volume 1, and Tables in the Wilderness

Which book did you enjoy most? I thought spiritual memoir would be a tough genre to tackle for readathon, but I loved Preston Yancey's story of figuring out what he believed and how he learned to have grace for people who believe differently than he does.

Which did you enjoy least? Submerged was pretty much what I expected it to be. I obviously liked it enough to finish it, but I wasn't overwhelmingly in love with it.

If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? If I am reading and cheering, I like to do spurts of reading and then take a break for a half hour or so to cheer. It seems to work - I cheered through my whole team list this year!

How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? As long as there is a readathon, I will be there. Since the April readathon falls around my birthday, I tend to do fewer things. However, I am thinking about trying co-hosting or maybe help with the Goodreads group.

Hour 19
I think I'm calling it for the night, friends. I finished the book I was reading and I have to get up in the morning and get the kiddos (and myself!) out the door to church.


What have I been doing the past few hours, you ask? I watched Doctor Who with the husband, did a little work and a load of laundry, ate dinner and some snacks (including Milano cookies with pretzels), and took advantage of this very cold evening to soak in the tub with a good book.



240 pages; finished! 

 
320 pages; finished!

 
256 pages; finished! 


Hour 14

Mid-Event Survey:
1. What are you reading right now? I just finished Submerged and I'm halfway through Tables in the Wilderness!
2. How many books have you read so far? Two
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? Ms. Marvel!
4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? A few: these children who insist on calling me mom; work; Doctor Who. You just roll with the punches. Readathon is fun no matter how many hours you read!
5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? How fast and slow the time goes at the same time!

24 Hour Readathon Fall 2015: The First Twelve

 

Hour 10 Check-In:

The books:
 
 
 119 pages read



 
119 pages read

Food: Husband brought me a turkey club and fries for lunch. I may have snacked on some Pirate's Booty while he cooks dinner. Yum! 

Drinks: More water and a second cup of coffee. 

Cheering: I think I'm almost all of the way through Team Beech, so I may see if I can take a second trip through everyone's Twitter accounts. 

Up next: It's almost dinner time, followed by bedtime for the kiddos. I'm not sure how much reading will get done in the next two hours or so. After that though there will be more reading, perhaps in the tub, and then a break for Doctor Who!


How goes your readathon, friends??     

 Hour 5 Check-In:
Hello friends! How are your books? And your snacks? Are you still in pajamas? (I totally am. There is no shame in this game.)

 Here are my books so far:

 
375 pages; finished!

Food: A muffin and an apple. I know, it's so healthy and boring so far. The good snacks will come out later!

Drinks: 1 cup coffee, 1 1/2 glasses of water 

Cheering: I'm making my way through the Team Beech list and I've cheered for about 30 readers so far. 

Up Next: It's time for book #2! I think I'm going to try one of my own books, since I just finished a library book.      

 Mini-challenge: Cover Escape!

 


Hour 1

It's time for the opening meme!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? I am reading in the lovely state of NJ, where fall has definitively taken up residence with chilly mornings and changing leaves.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? Oh gosh. I'm excited for Dumplin'. And Ms. Marvel. And Yes Please. Really, all of them!

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? I bought some of those Milano cookies with the pretzel pieces on them. I think they are going to be the snack winner.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself! Why is this always the hardest question? Freelance editor. Book blogger. Wife. Mama to two. Very snarky and until my allergy meds kick in this morning, very sniffly.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? I think I've got it down to a good rhythm. When you have two kiddos, you have to go with the flow to some extent.


Happy readathon, everyone!!

The Post Before Readathon

Tomorrow is the fall Readathon. If you aren't signed up, hop over here first and join in! Then come back, please.

Let's start with the most important thing first - the books! Half the fun of readathon is ridiculously overplanning, with the hope that you will somehow you will read faster than you have ever read in your life, unhampered by family, a need for bathroom breaks, or the stuff of day-to-day life. Here is my ambitious pile of books:

From the library:
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
Ms. Marvel, volume 1 by G. Willow Wilson

From my shelves:
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Things Unsaid by Diana Paul
Submerged by Dani Pettrey
Tables in the Wilderness by Preston Yancey
Yes, Please by Amy Poehler

The next important thing is the food. I usually do better with planning and cooking/baking ahead of the Readathon. This time around, things just didn't happen so much. I plan to make a late night Target run tonight and pick up some yummy snacks. Hubby has promised to cook dinner, so we should be all set!

This year, I will be reading and cheering so maybe I will come visit you on twitter!


What are you reading? What snacks will you have? Tell me of all your readathon plans!