A Confession: The DUFF by Kody Keplinger

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 “the Duff,” she throws her Coke in his face. But things aren’t so great at home right now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it. Eager for escape, Bianca throws herself into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with him.
Until it all goes horribly awry. It turns out 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.
 
My confession: I was the DUFF, or at least I thought I was. Like Bianca, I had boys that would point that out to me as Wesley had to her. I'm not saying that they would call me the DUFF, but they would point out that I was too tall. That if  I was shorter, they may would have dated me. Then they would try to convince me to convince my friends to date them, just as Wesley did in their first encounter in The Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Didn't they know I was the one that wanted to date them? But I never found it possible. I was too tall, too awkward, too guarded to completely be myself. I am just thankful that I had awesome friends that didn't make me feel that way. I'm still friends with those same girls today.

I really enjoyed reading The DUFF, it was a lot of fun and the makeout scenes were super steamy! When Wesley would kiss Bianca's neck I could feel the shivers go up my spine. One of my favorite scenes was when Bianca's friend Casey came to pick her up after staying the night with Wesley. Unable to hide her lies, Bianca had to confess what had been going on between her and Wesley. I loved that Casey wasn't going to let Bianca off the hook so easily, but like a true friend, she didn't put her through the wringer either. While the strain in Bianca and Casey's relationship was easily resolved, there were other dramatic situations that I thought were resolved too easily. Especially the incident after Bianca's father started drinking again. There were some situations where I wanted to story to be developed more and this was one of them. For the most part, I liked the story and am excited to read more from Keplinger.

I read The DUFF as part of The Contemps Challenge.