Review: The DUFF

Sweet High School Romance


2 stars

Mini Review:

Every now and then a book written for young adults turns out to be a sweet high school movie. It's got guitar playing boys with long hair, bitchy girls, best friends, high school jock, funny, weird parents and teachers, and yes a high school dance.

Main Review:

High school can be a nightmare if you are not one of the most 'popular' kids. You must be pretty and intelligent and good at sports and awesome at studies, and you are also expected to be phenomenally talented. If you cannot be that, you should be some super nerd who saves the world. 

What you can never, ever be, is ugly and fat. 

In fact these two words are such a 'no-no' that if you were making a scary movie for young adults, the fat, ugly kid is usually the first one to be killed by flying sharks or zombies or slashers.

This movie tells you that it is worse being the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. The ugliest person in a group of hot friends.

The movie will remind you of your own struggles in high school. The movie will make you want to send a group hug to everyone on your Facebook High School page. The movie will make you cry because things have not changed since the whole class laughed at you when the frog jumped off the dissection tray and into your school shirt and you screamed as you took off the shirt in front of the biology class. The movie will remind you of bitchy classmates who got off fancy cars and made fun of the length of your skirt (your mother had just let down the hem and there was a tell-tale line that announced your growth spurt). This movie will remind you of your former crushes and you'll go to their facebook pages and check them out again...

What this movie will also show you that the world is now unkinder and tougher to the teenagers today. They have coined horrendous words like DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) and they are far more insidious when they make fun of anyone. Had the kids posted a video of my encounter at the bio lab with the frog, it would be terrible to live it down. 

In this world, one fat teenager decides that she will not be the DUFF and gets help. 

Sigh. It's all very funny, and cute and sweet and romantic...

Read the book by the same name written by Kody Keplinger. Watch the movie to re-live high school memories. Or if you have a teenage daughter...