Author: Kody Keplinger
Source: Netgalley
Published: 2010

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.

I have no idea why I put this book off for so long. It was always one of those books that I saw and thought "Oh, it's just going to be another predictible contemporary". Predictable? Yes to a certain extent, but like any other contemporary? I think not.

The characters were very believable and relatable, and although sometimes Bianca annoyed the hell out of me, I felt as though I could empathise with her. Nothing she did was so outlandish to think that it would never have happened as I, myself, have had some of the exact same feelings that she's had at one point or another as I was growing up at school. I loved the way that she, Wesley and the other characters around them grew as people and realised their actions; it wasn't a stilted change, but a fluid evolution of life.

The Duff highlights the idea that nobody is perfect, and I love that moral. We all have our flaws, things we don't like about ourselves, and our own problems, and each and every persons problem is personal to them no matter how insubstantial it may sound in comparison to others. In general, there are just so many ideas that Keplinger promotes in this story that I don't want to go into all of them to save from spoiling the whole book. It's just what makes it so wonderful.

I only have a couple of hang ups on this book; I don't like the promotion (especially to the teen audience) of using sex as a distraction. Also, the term "Duff" was only used by one person, nobody else even knew what the word meant or said it at all. To me, it did seem as though Bianca was being a bit over dramatic when she was thinking about it all the time as if everybody was saying this about her. I guess that is high school all over but you know what I mean.

This book wasn't that stereotypical and cliche like a lot of "high school" books, but was scarily quite accurate (from my experience anyways). It had all the drama of a school; from the classes, homework, boys and friendships - it really covered all bases with regards to school life as well as continuing on with the story. The sub-plot of Bianca's family life was also nicely woven into the story as well giving it some extra depth.

I flew through this book in less than 24 hours, which is amazing for me - it was fast paced, attention grabbing, funny, and there was never a dull moment. It portrays the great things about growing up without ignoring the nitty gritty of real life. The Duff is what contemporary should be.