Puddin'

Starred review from February 19, 2018
Clover City High School in Texas has a clear social hierarchy: football on top, dance team members next, then everyone else. Junior Millie Michalchuk, who also appeared in Murphy’s Dumplin’, may be a lifer at fat camp, but that doesn’t mean she buys into how the world sees her. Callie Reyes dates a football player and is on course to become dance team captain. The girls’ paths rarely cross. Then the dance team loses its funder, a gym owned by Millie’s uncle, and its members break in and trash the business. When a sulky Callie starts working at the gym, Millie models not just friendship and forgiveness, but also tough-love examples of how to treat people. Through the girls’ alternating perspectives, Murphy develops their aspirations and struggles: Millie isn’t sure how to pursue her dream of being a TV anchor; Mexican-American Callie experiences stereotyping and yearns for friends, not frenemies. Murphy convincingly and satisfyingly portrays how their one-step-forward-two-steps-back bonding process helps them go for what they want rather than what others think is possible. Ages 13–up. Agent: John M. Cusick, Folio Literary Management.

March 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-On the heels of her success in the Miss Clover City pageant, Millie Michalchuk is determined to pursue her dream of broadcast journalism and not let her weight define her life. Callie Reyes is the pretty and popular queen bee who is better at having useful frenemies than actual friends. When Callie's revenge prank spirals out of control, it destroys the image that she's cultivated for herself and leaves her working side by side with Millie. As the girls get to know each other beyond superficial impressions, their very different strengths push both girls toward what will make them truly happy. Full of humor and heart, fans of Dumplin' will not be disappointed by this book that builds nicely on the themes of self-confidence and self-acceptance without falling into lecture. This is a highly character-driven book and the authentically complex characters are up to the task. Not only is Murphy capable of taking both the popular and unpopular girl beyond tropes, but Millie is a starkly different character than Dumplin's Willowdean. Though very different, they believably find common ground fighting the superficial boxes teenagers often find themselves in and examining the defenses they've built to survive them. VERDICT This companion to the very popular Dumplin' introduces more memorable characters for whom readers can't help but cheer. A first purchase.-Elizabeth Saxton, Tiffin, OH

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2018
Vandalism throws a teen of unflagging cheer into regular contact with her polar opposite in this novel told in alternating first-person chapters.Millie's decided to end her nine-year stint at weight-loss summer camp: She's fine being fat, which weight-loss camp hasn't changed anyway. Instead, she's applying--behind her parents' backs--to a broadcast journalism program. Meanwhile, she's bouncily organizing sleepovers with her friends and flirting with Malik, an attractive South Asian boy at school. But when Millie's aunt and uncle's gym is vandalized by the dance team after being forced by poor profits to withdraw its sponsorship, the only team member to get caught--and required to work alongside Millie at the gym--is Callie Reyes, whose prickly affect stands in contrast to Millie's sunny optimism. Callie is grappling with being biracial while living with her racially unaware white mother, stepfather, and half sister. Speaking little Spanish, she sometimes feels out of place with other Mexican-Americans yet frequently experiences casual racism from strangers and her exploitative boyfriend. And the supposed everlasting sisterhood of her fellow dance team members falls at the first hurdle. Millie's oblivious arrogance toward a friend who comes out as asexual and toward Callie over racial identity is handled far too perfunctorily, but Murphy's plot brims with unlikely friendships, irresistible romance, fabulous fat acceptance, and a kick-ass ending.Buoying. (Fiction. 13-16)

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March 1, 2018
Grades 8-12 This companion to the popular Dumplin' (2015) brings two supporting characters center stage. Good girl Millicent is determined to spend her summer at journalism camp?not the fat camp where, over the years, she lost more self-esteem than weight. Brash and bitchy Callie is thrilled with her rich boyfriend and coveted place on the Shamrock dance team. After a local gym, owned by Millie's uncle, must default on its monetary support of the team, a trashing of the gym by masked Shamrocks gets out of control; only Callie, identified by her necklace, suffers consequences. She's banished from the team, ditched by her boyfriend, and forced to work off the damages alongside Millie. Told in alternating chapters, the when-worlds-collide story goes deep as the girls form an unlikely friendship that reveals their strengths and weaknesses and shows the possibilities that open when stepping outside one's comfort zone. Adult characters tend to blend together, and it may take a while for those unfamiliar with Dumplin' to sort out the backstory. Fortunately, Murphy's energetic writing style makes for compulsive readability. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With the number-one best-selling Dumplin'soon to take a bow in movie theaters, demand for this ought to be slammin'.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)