This book depressed me. Has the world really gotten to a point where the best solution to overwhelming problems is the dive into the endorphines of meaningless sex with the town man-whore who you absolutely despise? Please don't answer that question. Maybe we should back up in health class and do more than talk about STDs and pregnancy and talk about the emotional complications of sex.

I kept waiting for Bianca's reckless behavior to catch up with her, but it never did. On the physical scale, every time she slept with Wesley I kept wondering how "clean" he could be after sleeping with hundreds of girls, sometimes hours before hooking up with Bianca. Protection or no protection, there are still risks and Bianca got lucky that nothing happened. On a social scale, nobody found out and called her out for being a hypocrite by doing the exact same thing Wesley was doing after being so vocally disgusted by him. On an emotional/mental scale, she had a second's regret at being dirty before she pushed the reaction out of her mind. It could have come back later, coupled with all the problems she was running from, and Bianca would have had to face herself and the decisions she'd made and deal with the mess she'd created. But when the emotional effects started to catch up with her, she threw herself in other distractions (making the same mistakes without consequence) until everything worked out so that her reckless behavior ended up benefiting her. She still had problems to deal with and realizations about herself to make and all that was good and well done, but this not-very-wise decision that's pivotal to the story doesn't ever really affect her the way I think it should have.

The good news is that Keplinger, a teenager herself, has written a humorous, engaging tale that although it made me feel a little dirty for liking it :), I couldn't put it down. In the beginning, I didn't quite believe Bianca throwing herself at Wesley. I mean she hates him with a passion and after he insults her she's making out with him. I think that would have worked better if he had made the first move and she got caught up in someone hitting on her. But beside that, the plot is well paced and the characters well developed and very authentic (personally, I think Lauren Oliver did a better job in Before I Fall with about a hundredth of the swear words and none of then f words, but that could just be my personal preference). Besides warnings for a lot of language and a lot of non-descript sex, I have another warning: The DUFF mentions Wuthering Heights. No! Gratefully, it's not some literary snob who is obsessed with WH at the exclusion of modern fiction (although there is a jab about Twilight and Harry Potter). But when introduced to WH, Bianca starts seeing her own life in the characters and we have yet another twisted love story comparing itself to WH. Again, it works here, but it is so overdone.

Even though Bianca often exasperated me, I felt for her and got a little sad for her at times, maybe even a little choked up. I rooted for her. And I ended up really liking Wesley too. Yeah it's a little stretch that the town womanizer who objectifies women is really a sensitive guy, but the way Keplinger writes him, it works on him. I had trouble sympathizing with him that his grandmother would be embarrassed that he was flaunting his man-whore status, but he ended up being a good guy that I could root for despite all his jerky comments and lack of morality. (On a sidenote: the guy I did sympathize with was the boyfriend. I got the impression that he didn't want to do anything but when a girl throws herself at you, it's not socially acceptable for a guy to say no. And in today's world, it's not the guys coercing girls into having sex but the other way around. Nice boys really do finish last and that's so wrong.)

The story is strong and lingering, but I'm not sure I agree with all the messages in the book. The biggest message is that everyone feels like the duff sometimes. It's a nice idea, but I doubt it. Everyone feels less than beautiful at times, but not everyone has potential to be the hot one with a change a friends and wardrobe in the spirit of She's All That. The message may be optimistically wrong, but I like where Keplinger is going with it, that we all have insecurities. I just wish the message had been more about accepting who you are regardless. Throughout the book I was reading Bianca as a heavy-set girl who wasn't ugly but wasn't that attractive (and it seemed strange that she was so comfortable with her sexuality and nudity around the very Greek god who dubbed her duff), but then at the end her friends were calling her cute and petite and I was disappointed to realize she was averagely attractive and just insecure. I think I liked it better when she was unattractive and it didn't matter.

Don't judge because we're all sluts, therefore, nobody is a slut. Okay, the don't judge thing is always a good message and it was a good wake-up call for Bianca to realize she could be that girl that everyone was talking about behind her back, but the rest of that logic is a little faulty in a two-wrongs-make-a-right sort of way. Maybe don't be so slutty would have been a better message?

I loved that Bianca kept denying that she could ever be in love. That teenagers don't have the potential for that kind of love in their relationships because it takes years to develop. But if love is too much emotional responsibility for teenagers, why isn't sex? And why is casual, meaningless, unplanned sex as escapism okay but sex with someone you might actually love something you should stop and consider and maybe be a little hesitant to jump into? I've read sex in YA that worked for me because it was about love and emotional connection and commitment. If this had been about how screwed up this kind of base, unattached sex made Bianca's and Wesley's life I would have liked it a little better.

Keplinger uses her novel to go on a rant about gay marriage rights, not really part of the plot, but that didn't bother me as much as her disdain for emo music. Sorry, but I'm a fan. If she'd made fun of country music I would have liked it so much more :).

But despite all that, I still liked it. For a debut novel by such a talented young author, overall I'd say well done. There are definitely friends I would recommend this to who would enjoy Bianca and Wesley and the story and the writing. And there are friends I would definitely not recommend this to because the twisted messages about sex detract from an otherwise fun story.