Book Review: Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

Everyone has heard about the movie on Netflix, but have you heard of the book behind it all? I certainly hadn't until the movie came out, and I'm honestly surprised it took me that long.

This book is set in Clover City, Texas, but it might as well be any small town. Willowdean Dixon is the narrator with a lot of sass and spunk and reminds me a lot of myself. The book is one that I can't wait to read again (or listen to, my copy is on Audible). Will, for short, is the girl that I wished I had been in high school in regards to the comfort with myself. See, Will is a big girl, like me. She is not one who you would think would enter a beauty pageant, but she does. Why? To defy stereotypes and to honor her aunt. Will is the girl who has said everything out loud or in her head what I have said in my head a thousand and one times over about whether I should be "allowed" certain things based on my size. She is confident and, also, human. She has her faults, but you can't blame her. She is just trying to navigate highschool, boys, friendships, and finding out who she really is in her core -- but with drag queens to help her. She relies so much on Dolly Parton to get her through. By the end of the book, I was wondering to myself why that I wasn't a bigger Dolly fan before devouring this book through two and a half car drives to Murfreesboro.

Julie Murphy is a saint for writing this, because this is the book that shows big girls that they don't have to become small girls in order to win her story. This book shows that a girl can be her own hero regardless of size and that stereotypes are for the birds. This is a book that showed me that I am Willowdean, I am bold, and I am (in my head at least) a beauty queen. Will is a great narrator and has such a great group of friends that you can't help but almost be a little jealous of her figuring this out so much sooner than I and a lot of people have.

If you want a book that is just good for the soul and has you feeling all types of ways (especially about red lollipops) then this is the book for you.

As always, click on the picture to take you to Amazon to order it! Also, I am currently listening to the sequel, Puddin', and will have a post about it as soon as I get it finished! (Hopefully real soon, because the characters feel like home and I can't wait to return back to Clover City.)

I don't own this image.