Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“I kind of wonder what it feels like to love something so much that you’re even happy to fail at it.”

Puddin' by Julie Murphy

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I was thrilled to hear Julie Murphy wrote a sequel to Dumplin’ and picked up a copy as soon as my library got it in.  I definitely had high expectations but, unfortunately, I also had very little knowledge about what the sequel was about so I was a bit let down to realize Willlowdean was relegated to a barely mentioned side character. If you are a big fan of Dumplin’ then I recommend going into Puddin’ with the mindset that it is not a sequel but rather its own standalone novel that […]

She had me at Dolly Parton.

Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

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Dumplin’, whose real name is Willowdean, is a smart, kind, capable, funny, and fat (her term) 16-year-old in small-town Texas. Being sixteen is sucky enough, am I right?!, but the “fat” part causes even more trouble than one would expect for Dumplin’ since her mom is the local pageant queen-turned-pageant director, still living on her own pageant days, staying thin to fit in a 30-year-old dress. She was herself once Miss Teen Blue Bonnet and you better believe that’s a big effin’ deal in Clover […]

Feeling Blue

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

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Ramona lives in Eulogy, Mississippi with her dad and her pregnant sister in a trailer.  The trailer was supposed to be a place for them to rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina.  However, lives don’t just miraculously piece themselves back together and money doesn’t grow on trees and sometimes, moms can’t handle reality and leave. So now 12 years later, Ramona works hard to keep her family afloat.  Fiercely protective of them and constantly worried about their future, she seems to think of her own as a […]

“I hate this idea that boys are thinking about sex nonstop and girls are thinking about – what? Stationery and garden gnomes? No.”

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

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Back in 2016, the CBR hivemind recommended Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy. I tore through it and adored it, and thought that Julie Murphy had the potential to be a great voice in modern, southern YA. She wrote about rural southern life so vividly, and made even the most uncomfortable topics easy to digest. Ramona Blue is her follow up novel, and I’m happy to report that it’s just as good as Dumplin’. Ramona (who has blue hair, but is called Ramona Blue because of her […]

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jo-leeene

Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

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I had a really shit week, and Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’ got me through it. Strong but vulnerable teenage girls, daring adventures, Dolly Parton, good looking boys, and really good writing took me away from most of my woes. The stinky farts after my dog got into some garbage were inescapable.     Willowdean, known as Will to most, and Dumplin’ to her mother is growing up in a small town in west Texas. Will is fat. It bothers her mother, a former beauty queen who runs […]

Find out who you are and do it on purpose

Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

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3.5 stars Willowdean “Will” Dickson is a teenager in a small town in Texas, with nothing much to recommend it, except being home of the oldest beauty pageant in the state (possibly the country, I don’t remember). The Miss Teen Bluebonnet is a big deal and Will’s mother’s biggest claim to fame is that she won it when she was young, and still fits into the evening dress she wore. She now wears it every year, as she presents the pageant. Will is not skinny […]



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