THE DUFF

Downing Cherry Cokes and watching her two best friends hoof it out on the dance floor of the local teen club doesn’t make 17-year-old Bianca Piper feel good about herself. Especially when high-school man-slut Wesley Rush tells her she's the Duff, her friends’ "designated ugly fat friend," and tries to cozy up to her in order to get into her friends’ pants. Later on, somehow, someway, Bianca finds herself drawn to Wesley, and before she knows it, they’ve created a complex, enemies-with-benefits relationship that the YA market has never seen before. Their encounters are heatedly frank and full of humor, anger and rage, and soon the two learn they have more in common than they could ever have expected. Keplinger scores a first for a genre in which vampires and dystopian futures rule. Her snarky teen speak, true-to-life characterizations and rollicking sense of humor never cease in her debut. Teen readers will see both themselves and their friends in Bianca’s layered, hostile world. (Fiction. 12 & up)