Doesn't everyone love a little Dumplin' sometimes?

Let's get something out of the way. I'm fat--have been chubby since before 5th grade and don't remember a time when I was skinny. The older I get, the less this descriptor bothers me because while I'm tons of other things, including pretty, fat is an accurate physical description. Before you see the color of my eyes or my sometimes purple hair, you see my size. It doesn't make sense to ignore it. I'm not offended if someone uses fat to describe me to someone who hasn't met me, just don't make it your only descriptor. People get uncomfortable when I use the word fat, but I'm not oblivious to my size, I don't ignore it.

Being fat is NOT the reason I picked up Dumplin' by Julie Murphy which seems to be marketed as a body positive story. I first heard about it at Chicago Public Library's annual Best of the Best event (an all day book lovers dream where librarians from multiple departments talk about their favorites from the previous year.) The book was described as a tale of misfits who enter the local beauty pageant as a sort of giant middle finger to the people running the event. When I made it halfway through the book before the misfits began to assemble into a group, I was disappointed. But I was compelled to keep reading because Murphy's writing is the kind that I love. It makes me laugh out loud, swoon, feel warm and fuzzy, and it makes me think.

Willowdean is fat, loves Dolly Parton, works at a fast food joint, adores her skinny best friend, Ellen, and has a mom who runs the local Miss Teen Blue Bonnet pageant in Clover City, Texas. The book opens just as her sophomore year is ending and pageant season is beginning. Will does not have a good relationship with her mother, misses her aunt who recently passed away, and is worried that she and El are drifting apart. To top all this off, she starts a secret make out relationship with the gorgeous star of the private school's basketball team and her coworker, Bo. Bo is sweet if really quiet and doesn't seem like he has some motive other than he really likes Will. In Bo, lies Will's biggest problem. She develops anxiety every time Bo holds her waist or lets his hands wander away from her face. And truth be told, she's a little mortified to realize that she's the kind of girl that thinks a guy can't or won't like her because of who is she is and how she looks without having to bend to societal norms of beauty. When Will accidentally finds out that Bo will be attending school with her in the fall, she can't stomach what others will say and think if she and Bo remain a couple, so she very sloppily ends their relationship that never really had a chance to start.

With the start of their Junior year, Willowdean catches Mitch's eye. He is genuinely a good guy: thoughtful, sweet, and not Bo. They strike up a friendship and Mitch definitely wants more and sometimes, Will does too. Will's relationship with her mom becomes so strained that she decides she will enter the pageant to honor her aunt who never did and to generally piss off her mom. Upon doing this, Will attracts the attention of a few other girls that don't fit into the pretty or popular mold, and they decide to enter along with her. This is where the story really takes off. Willowdean and Ellen get into an friendship ending fight, and for the record, I get how Will felt, but I think the rift between the two was all her. Bo decides he wants to pursue Will, and there is an epic scene that takes place between the two of them in a girls bathroom at school that had me holding my breath.

This book has one of the best supporting casts that I have read in a book in a long, long time. I can't even reveal them all in this post, but trust me, when the girls take a road trip after Will reads some of her aunt's old emails, you won't be disappointed. And then there are all things Texas in the book, like Homecoming Mums. Google image search them. They're real, hideous, hilarious, and could only exist in Texas! In the end, this was a book with a really good message about relationships and how we can mess them up and sometimes get the chance to fix them. Will's character arc is really interesting even if I can't be 100% on board with a girl who will string along two equally nice guys. Although her choices seem like they ring true for real life, I was still sad and disappointed when someone had to get hurt.

Don't read this book because you are fat or because you are on the body positive bandwagon. Read it because Julie Murphy's writing is great like when she writes, "I walk to my car as Bo's gaze follows me; the feeling of it starts as a ball of heat in my chest and spreads like a sunrise." Read it because it's a damn cute story that gives you all the feels!

** Notice my super cute dog, Max, photobombing my pic...he loves summer as much as me because he snuggles up with me all day while I read.