Everyone has a hobby that they only enjoy during the summer months, and if you are anything like me, your hobby may be reading. Over the summer, I have read new books from many different genres within young adult fiction and reviewed them when I have completed them. For the next two weeks, I will be reading the last book for the summer, and will be gearing up for fall semester to start. Feel free to read along, comment, and share your views on our summer book club picks.

For the last two weeks of summer, the book club pick is “Dumplin’,” by Julie Murphy. This is an odd pick because it, unlike the other books from this summer, was not released this year. Although it an older book, it has been scheduled to be turned into a movie in 2018, so it seemed appropriate to review now.

“Dumplin’” is about a teenager from Texas who struggles with insecurities surrounding her body image and her weight. Because her mother was a beauty queen and because she is overweight, she does not feel adequate enough to date a guy that likes her when he asks her out. To turn her self-confidence around and to prove to the people in the town and to herself that she is more than her weight, she enters a beauty contest and must compete with everyone’s ideas of beauty to win.

Read more to follow along, and have a great end of summer!