Dumplin'

I've been meaning to read Julie Murphy's "Dumplin'" for awhile, it seemed like it was right up my alley, and it was! Willowdean (her mother calls her "Dumplin'", her friends call her "Will") is an overweight teenager in a small south Texas town. The town cares about two things: high school football and beauty pageants. Will's mom was a winner of the Clover City Miss Blue Bonnet pageant back in 1997, and she's become the official MC of the event, so Will is used to the pageant taking over their lives. Will works at a fast food place with a hot guy name Bo she has a mad crush on. They spend the summer before their junior year sneaking in make out sessions during and after work, but when Will finds out he's transferring to her school in the fall and didn't tell her, she's upset at him trying to keep her a secret from his family and friends. Of course Will didn't tell *her* best friend, Ellen, about Bo, but...(pot, kettle, kettle, pot). Will decides she's going to compete in the beauty pageant, throwing everyone she knows for a loop. Will doesn't want to end up like her Aunt Lucy, who was 500 pounds and died young of a heart attack, never leaving the house because she was so embarrassed about her size. At first Will convinces herself she's doing it for Lucy, but it ends up becoming something she does for herself. It was a fun book, I enjoyed it, but I did have to suspend my disbelief over the hot Bo actually wanting to be in a real relationship with Will. Murphy doesn't say how big she is, but it seems very unlikely. I somehow doubt high school boys have improved *that* much since I was a teenager.

The Prince Who Would Be King; Trixie Belden and the Mystery off Glen Road; Elizabeth; Puddin'

I was actually a little disappointed by this one, it wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped it would be. I think I wasn't a fan of Fraser's writing style. When Queen Elizabeth I died, King James I of Scotland inherited the throne, uniting Scotland and England for the first time and becoming King James VI. His eldest son, Henry, was a brilliant boy: athletic and charming and smart, interested in science and math and art and the Navy. He was liked by all and would have been brilliant as King Henry IX, but unfortunately he died before he could take the throne. His younger brother, Charles, became King when James died, and ended up being beheaded when the monarchy was overthrown. Just not my cup of tea, I guess.

I know, I know. I reread this one all the time. If you want to know what I think about it:
http://bekkisbookblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/trixie-belden-and-mystery-off-glen-road.html
http://bekkisbookblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/walk-among-tombstones-landline-trixie.html
http://bekkisbookblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/trixie-belden-and-mystery-off-glen-road.html
http://bekkisbookblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-twelve-little-women-and-werewolves.html
Long story short: it makes me laugh :)

I probably should stop reading books about Queen Elizabeth II, they're all pretty much the same. There wasn't anything new in Sarah Bradford's 1996 bio (it was startling to see her referring to Princess Diana in the present tense, though, since she was still alive when Bradford wrote this). It was a fun read, and nicely written, it just felt redundant.

I loved Julie Murphy's "Dumplin'", and this is a companion/sequel, and I loved it too. It's told in alternating points of view between Millie and Callie. Millie is the fat girl (I guess she's bigger than Will, and she calls herself "fat", so that's her word, not mine) who dreams of being a broadcast journalist and finally getting the cute guy she has a crush on to notice her. Every summer her mother sends her to fat camp, but this year she's determined to go to journalism camp instead. Callie is the opposite of Millie: gorgeous and thin, the star dancer on the high school's squad, the Shamrocks, with a hot, rich boyfriend and everything going for her. Callie and her friends are looking forward to the Shamrocks going to State and hopefully Nationals when they find out the gym that was sponsoring them pulled their funding. Furious, the girls vandalize the gym, and only Callie gets caught. As punishment, she has to work off the price of the repairs at the gym with Millie, whose Aunt and Uncle own the place. The two girls end up becoming unlikely friends. It was super sweet and had the requisite happy ending, which was nice if not a little unbelievable. I'm probably getting cynical in my old age :) But it was a good story.