Rumors and Candidness Bring Keplinger to the Top

Do you remember the unfortunate girl in high school who carried the nickname "slut"? If you think back really hard, can you remember a shred of truth to those rumors? Did anyone actually know for a fact they had happened? Most likely not, and in Kody Keplinger's third novel, A Midsummer's Nightmare, we see a candid portrayal of a girl who starts off wearing that label like a badge of honor and eventually finds a little soul searching is all she needed to get to the root of her choices and actions.

Whitley suffers through each school year in order to make it to the summer- her only time with her father. Now that she has graduated, this summer is even more exciting. It is a chance to hang out with her dad, make cocktails, and relax, as opposed to the misery of living with her mother where her mom ignores her most of the time and only acknowledges her existence to complain about her father. At her last big graduation party, Whitley gives in to her drunken state and meets a guy who she wakes up next to the next morning. He was fun, and certainly good looking, but she is moving on from this place, and she doesn't plan on looking back.

When she gets to her father's place, she quickly realizes things have changed. He moved out of his condo and into a house, and he is engaged. For her father, who goes through girlfriends so fast Whitley doesn't even bother to learn their names, this is a huge development. But even worse, her dad's fiance has two kids. And despite the odds, that new stepbrother-to-be just happens to be the boy from the party the week before! As if things couldn't be any worse, Whitley is now going to be related to her latest hookup.

To drown her miseries in this fresh hell she has found herself in, Whitley submerges herself in the local parties and the local nameless boys. She doesn't care what their names are or who they are because they are just a good distraction, but when that distraction starts to have consequences, Whitley starts to see the ugly side of her reputation. She used to just enjoy the perks of all the male attention it garnered, but now the attention has gotten ugly, and borderline scary. But the one man she wants to notice her has no problem ignoring her for the entire summer- her father. And nothing she has done has gotten his attention. Yet.

This is the third book I have read by Keplinger, and I continue to be amazed by her candid writing style that puts the BS aside and focuses on the topics young adults really want to talk about. She isn't afraid to say things adults might be taken aback by or uncomfortable with, because her books aren't for adults- they are for the same teens they are written about. I find it a beautifully honest way to write and applaud Keplinger for sticking to her target audience with brutal honesty. I am sure most people will say these books are appropriate only for older teens because of the sexual content and alcohol use, but I challenge that premise by saying it is a candid picture of teen life that might make some teens think twice or at least encourage them to think differently about their lives and the lives of the people around them.

This book dealt with some hard situations, but the idea of being labeled a slut and publicly humiliated via social media was hard to bear witness to. Therefore, it should make you, the reader, uncomfortable. And the idea of a girl acting out, resorting to alcohol and bad decisions with boys to get her absentee parents to acknowledge her existence? That is the hardest thing to watch because you know how often it happens. Whitley certainly has a chip on her shoulder, and her selfishness is hard to reconcile with, but she is just the kind of flawed heroine we find ourselves relating to. This is another important book from Keplinger that tells the stories you might be too uncomfortable to tell to your teenaged girl. Keplinger isn't afraid to say what everyone is thinking, and I am grateful to have her books out there in the YA universe because of that fearlessness.

Who Has All the Power?

How do you get teenage boys to listen to you and stop acting like idiots? Well, if you are their girlfriends, you can withhold the one thing they can't live without... nope, not food, but you are close! Kody Keplinger's edgy but adorable novel Shut Out shows exactly what goes on in the heads of teenagers... And you might not always want to admit that you were once exactly like them!


Hamilton High is at war, and while the two rival sides, the soccer team and the football team, seem to enjoy their war, their girlfriends wish it would just end. The war started years ago, but the boys are just as serious about it now as the original teams were when it started. They egg each others cars, they interrupt dates, and they even get carried away to the point of a few guys getting hurt. Lissa made her boyfriend Randy promise to stay out of the war, but when he treats her like a "drive by" on the way to more mischief, she has had enough. She calls the girls together with a plan.


The girls are staging a Shut Out. The football girlfriends and the soccer girlfriends are banding together to withhold all sex and "other stuff" from their boyfriends until the stupid feud is called off. At first the girls are skeptical, but by banding together, they not only learn something about the boys they are dating (and not always something good), but they also learn something about themselves. Can the girls end the rivalry once and for all before it rips everyone apart?


I know what you are going to say. This is too provocative and too sexual for a young adult novel. You would be both right and wrong. Yes, it is provocative and sexual, but no, it isn't too much for the older end of this age group. I probably wouldn't give it to a young middle school student, but for the older YA crowd, this is a really well done novel that discusses the sexual intentions and understandings of teens. And not all girls are monogamous, not all are virgins, but not all are sexually active either. Some are embarrassed by their lack of experience, and some are ridiculed for being open about enjoying sex. There is a wide variety of girls and experiences, but they have one thing in common... they are all unsure in themselves and the world around them. Yes, this is a provocative and sexual novel, but it has a wide variety of young women our YA readers can relate to and look up to. I liked this. It is important to speak candidly to teenagers, and Keplinger never fails to do so. It may be her age (total lack of jadedness that comes with advanced age), but Keplinger doesn't hesitate to write about REAL teen issues, and sexual experience and pressures are a common issue. 


And that is where this novel works for me. It isn't sex for the sake of having sex, it has a purpose. Girls doubt themselves, they succumb to pressure, and they do things they are unsure of. The mixture of girls in this story really represents any clique of girls out there in the world, and they can all be different and still make it work. I also love the strong message that sex isn't something to be ashamed of, but also isn't something to keep your boyfriend around and not cheating either. In fact, when they were still planning the Shut Out, one girl expressed she was worried the boys would cheat on them if they Shut them out. Another girl responded by saying that if they did cheat, they weren't worth their time anyway and they should be happy to learn about that side of their boyfriends if it was there. Shut Out really had strong characters and ideals behind the mature and realistic topic.


I would probably give this to a high school student, although I can't imagine many boys would want to read it (or want their girlfriends to read it for fear of them getting any ideas!). I really like Keplinger's books. They combine realistic issues with fun stories, and always a little romance! You can root for the characters because you always see a little of yourself in at least one of them. I am impressed with this author's candor and look forward to seeing more of her writing. She knows how to speak to young adults in a way that neither patronizes them nor trivializes their issues. I wish I had an author like Keplinger out there when I was a young adult! 

There is always a Duff...?

The title of Kody Keplinger's debut novel caught my attention: DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend. I thought to myself, "Ugh! What the heck is this?!" Then I looked at the blurb on the inside jacket and was intrigued. The Duff is that girl in the group of friends- the one who isn't as pretty or tall or thin as the other girls. A beautiful girl can be the Duff, as long as her friends are prettier, taller, or thinner than she is. It's all about who your friends are.

For Bianca Piper, being the Duff was a label she half-expected but was still hurt by. Bianca is a strong young women. Her friends, Jessica and Casey, are endearing and the three of them get along well enough in high school. When Wesley, the hottest guy in school and the leading jerk/woman user/abuser of the school, comes up to her and calls her the Duff, she unceremoniously dumps her Cherry Coke in his face. She plays it off as if she doesn't care, but inside she can't stop think about the label: Duff.

When Jessica's brother comes into town- Bianca's first love who broke her heart when it turned out he was sleeping with her and still had a girlfriend- Bianca can't tell her friends why she is so upset. They still don't know she was ever involved with Jessica's brother. On an impulse, Bianca kisses Wesley. When they are partnered up on a school project by chance, Bianca is desperate to limit their contact as much as possible, but that might not be possible. She planned on bringing him to her house, but her father is not taking the impending divorce well. In fact, he starts drinking heavily after 18 years of being sober. Out of necessity, Bianca agrees to go to Wesley's house. Out of anger, Bianca ends up sleeping with Wesley. She can't believe what she has done, but at the same time, it feels really good to be with Wesley.

Over the next month or so, they continue meeting up at his house since his absentee parents are nowhere to be seen and her father is too drunk to know where she is. While the relationship may have begun as a physical contract only, Bianca and Wesley quickly realize they have more in common than they realize- namely no one else to confide in about their family problems. When it appears Wesley is enjoying Bianca's company in addition to the company of other ladies, she tells him to stuff it, but Wesley won't give up. Even when Bianca tries to move on with a nice, safe, albeit boring and obnoxious, new guy, Wesley won't leave her alone. In fact, when he catches her with this new guy, he almost seems hurt. But his true colors shine when he is confronted with the true reality of her father's alcoholic rages. Wesley will protect Bianca even if he can't admit how much he cares about her and how much she cares about him.

Wow. Don't even know where to begin with this one except, Wow. I am not going to lie or mislead you, this book has a lot of choice language, quite a bit of sex, and situations most adults are simply not comfortable talking about in relation to teenagers (even though we all know it happens). As I got about halfway through, I found myself absolutely shocked by the nature of the book- gritty, severely honest, and no BS. In fact I couldn't believe an adult wrote something so honest! Then I looked on the back flap to see that the author is actually only 18! Of course! No adult would speak to young adults this way- only another young adult could!

And thank the Gods she did! Young women need to hear this stuff. They need to know they aren't alone. They need to understand their insecurities are the same insecurities we have all felt. The idea of the Duff is painful and honest, probably because it hits home with such a strong right hook. I know I feel like the Duff with my friends all the time (because they are beautiful, strong, incredible women), but there is more to the idea of the Duff than just one girl's insecurities. In this book, Bianca is assumed to be the Duff, but in fact, her friends Jessica and Casey also feel like the Duff of their little threesome. Sometimes, when you feel like the lesser of the collective, it is hard to imagine the others feeling the same way. This life lesson is one that is invaluable to young women. Sure, I know we all feel insecure, but even my beautiful, strong, independent friends have insecurities. I might see them as strong and impenetrable, but they aren't. Knowing this makes the Duff label less like a stigma and more like girl power- we choose to own our insecurities as well as our strengths and talents. We aren't perfect and we are fine with that. Sometimes we feel bad about ourselves, but we can share that with our friends because they do too. Being the Duff is about being a woman, good and bad.

This book does have fairly mature language and situations, but it is nothing most teens (save the sheltered and the Amish) haven't already seen, heard, and sometimes lived. I think the adults recommending this book should be aware of the nature of this book and make the decision as to whether it is worth the benefits of such a book to give it to children/students. Personally, I think it is absolutely worth it. The mature circumstances in this book are not gratuitous or overdone, they are simply the nature of adolescence as it is today. We can choose to keep it from our kids in a healthy, empowering medium such as this, but we can't shelter them from everything. Personally, I would rather they saw these situations and related to them here, with an empowering moral, than to only hear about them on the school bus or in the hallways. I applaud Keplinger for taking such a stand and putting in a book for young adults what young adults want to hear and should hear. Brava!