Ratings9
Average rating4.5
Return to the beloved world of Julie Murphy’s #1 New York Times bestselling Dumplin’—now a popular Netflix feature film starring Jennifer Aniston—in this fabulously joyful, final companion novel about drag, prom, and embracing your inner Queen. Waylon Russell Brewer is a fat, openly gay boy stuck in the small West Texas town of Clover City. His plan is to bide his time until he can graduate, move to Austin with his twin sister, Clementine, and finally go Full Waylon so that he can live his Julie-the-hills-are-alive-with-the-sound-of-music-Andrews truth. So when Clementine deviates from their master plan right after Waylon gets dumped, he throws caution to the wind and creates an audition tape for his favorite TV drag show, Fiercest of Them All. What he doesn’t count on is the tape getting accidentally shared with the entire school. . . . As a result, Waylon is nominated for prom queen as a joke. Clem’s girlfriend, Hannah Perez, also receives a joke nomination for prom king. Waylon and Hannah decide there’s only one thing to do: run—and leave high school with a bang. A very glittery bang. Along the way, Waylon discovers that there is a lot more to running for prom court than campaign posters and plastic crowns, especially when he has to spend so much time with the very cute and infuriating prom king nominee Tucker Watson. Waylon will need to learn that the best plan for tomorrow is living for today . . . especially with the help of some fellow queens. . . .
Featured Series
3 primary books4 released booksDumplin' is a 4-book series with 3 released primary works first released in 2015 with contributions by Julie Murphy.
Reviews with the most likes.
Cute, queer, prom story. WillowDean and the crew from Dumplin' are tertiary characters, so you get a few updates on their stories. Everyone gets their romantic happy ending, there's a little intro to drag, and the hardship stakes are very low, so read if you want a sweet little teen uplift.
yess I was stoked to get an ARC of this! I love Julie Murphy's funny, warmhearted, fat-positive books. I love that this opens with Waylon's love of a clear analogue of RuPaul's Drag Race and a clear call-out of RuPaul's ongoing fatphobia (among other issues). That show is popular with a lot of teens (LGBTQ+ and otherwise) who I think will love reading about it and relate to Waylon's feelings about it. I also love that it shows teen ambivalence toward college and acknowledges that that doesn't need to be the path for everyone. It just rang true to a lot of Big Feelings that high school seniors particularly face, but plus also cute prom romance and elder drag queens mentoring queer youth.
Just an overall delightful spot of joy in my reading week!
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