Book Review: The Duff by Kody Keplinger

Author: Kody Keplinger
Publisher: Poppy
Release Date: January 1st 2010
My Rating: 5 cups
Source:Netgalley
Blurb (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 “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'm sitting here trying to figure out a way to adequately express how much I enjoyed reading this book. I loved it, actually. The DUFF is one of those books that surprised me, because I did not expect to like it this much.

The first thing that stood out while I was reading this book was how real the entire thing seemed. I felt like I myself was back in high school (thank God I wasn't!). The dynamics were all there, the relationships were there, everything that I remember high school to be was in this book. It might have to do with Keplinger's age while she was writing the book, but still, she had an amazing ability to capture all of that and put it on paper and make it seem genuine.

I adored Bianca and Wesley. Bianca is the type of girl that has a mildly bad time in high school. She's not the popular one or the pretty one. She doesn't fall for every line guys her age through at her, which I personally thought was awesome. She seems like the girl you'd deem "the crazy one", until you actually get to know her and understand her. I was so sad because of her family situation.

Wesley is a difficult guy to like at first. I didn't quite understand him in the beginning, but then certain scenes made me realize he is so not the guy I thought he was.Yes, he was always chasing girls, but what teenage boy doesn't? I liked how he respected Bianca's wishes and how he didn't try to push her to open up about what was bothering her. And eventually, like Bianca, I ended up liking him a lot.

There are so many good themes in this book: sex, alcohol abuse, bullying. And they are presented not in a preachy way, but in a natural, "shit happens sometimes" kind of way. However, the most important thing in my opinion, is when Bianca is shown that everybody has self esteem issues and that everyone has that something they don't like about themselves. That I think was the best lesson Bianca got in this book and that is why I loved The Duff so much.

Obsessed With Covers #18: A Thousand Pieces Of You, Wicked Luck & Endless

Y'all know how much I love a pretty cover. I think about...40% of the books that end up on my shelves (be they physical or digital) do so because of the covers. Call me shallow but you have to admit that a pretty, shiny cover will catch your eye faster than a dull, boring one. Two, simple rules that I'll follow:

• 1, 2 or 3 (no more than 3, though) covers per week;
• books should be new-ish; no more than 2 years old.

Oh, before I share the covers that made me drool or want to stare at them for hours and hours, I have to say something. This is a semi-original idea. Why semi? Because almost every book blogger has something similar. The only thing I came up with was the title. If by any chance there's another blogger with a similar feature with the same title, I assure you I'm not stealing your idea. I'm just THAT bad with titles. Believe me, I'd love to be smarter and have a witty name for this feature, but I don't. So, no copyright infringement/theft/steal or anything of the sort was desired. All I can say is sorry :P

I've seen so many gorgeous covers this week, I don't even know where to start or which ones to pick!

The watercolor background effect is gorgeous. And I love the night vs day, dark vs sunny contrast. Not only that, but there's a sort of irony in the cover, too. There's the dark, rainy half, that somehow gives me a sense of life, crowds, of stuff happening, while the sunny, shiny part gives me the impression of solitude and of still life. I absolutely adore this cover and the artist really did a great job.

A Thousand Skies Above You - Claudia Gray

Where to start? The skull covered in flowers is pretty awesome, but I also love the flower "frame" too (I'm going to assume they're roses, though I have no clue *hangs head in shame*). I recently developed a think for dark purple, so that is also another reason why I adore this cover. And the eye sockets are "staring" straight at you, sort of daring you to pick the book up. Interesting choice of cover art, given the title.

Wicked Luck - Shannon L. Maynard

This is such a simple, yet pretty cover. The thing that caught my attention is that the girl is hiding her face. And the way she's sitting makes me think that she's either really sad or she's trying to hide something. I wonder what. Then there's the awesome swirly design around the title. It's just so pretty to look at.

Endless - Amanda Grey

Reading Blogs & Eating Popcorn #8

Reading Blogs & Eating Popcorn is a weekly feature here at Ruby's Books, in which I share some of the posts written by other fellow book bloggers over the last week, posts that I loved so much I have to share. 

• Jon @ Bookish Antics talks about why book blogging is stressful. I could not agree more with this post! 
• Erika @ The Red Bookmark talks about the pros and cons of using GIFs.
• Nikki @ There Were Books Involved has a post about audiobooks. 
• Ashley @ Nosegraze shares some of her reasons for not commenting back. 
• Christina @ Christina Reads YA has some ideas on how to respond when someone disdains YA lit as well as some awesome book recommendations. This is a very good post, especially for someone rude like me, who'd just show that mean person the middle finger and season that with some inventive words (I hear swearing is impolite??? Who made that rule?)

I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I did. Did you read any good posts that you think everyone else should?