Pumpkin by Julie Murphy

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Title: Pumpkin
Author: Julie Murphy
Series: Dumplin' #3
Published by: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: May 25, 2021
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Chad Burris
Length: 7 hours and 20 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, LGBT, Romance, Young Adult, Coming of Age
Source: Libby
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 2, Lenoreo's 2023 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:

Blurb:

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 accidentally getting 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. . . .

My Review:

4 stars — Here’s the thing: Waylon’s a pretty realistic teenager.  In that he’s pretty wrapped up in his own head and his own life and dude is it hard to watch him not think about the other sides of things on so many situations.  It’s frustrating.  But it also makes his growth that much more satisfying — especially because Ms. Murphy makes the growth realistic too, so the fact it takes awhile for him to get there also makes it more believable.

I hadn’t read the previous 2 books in this series, though I had watched Dumplin’ on Netflix so I wasn’t completely lost on the setting and some previous characters.  You definitely don’t need that, it just adds more I would imagine.

Waylon had a lot of conflicting feelings hanging out inside himself.  He’s very much at that point of trying to figure out who he is and where he wants to go next in life, and he’s hit with some curve balls that throw off what he thinks he knows.  Again, he’s kind of self-involved, and has a good dose of cynicism and snark…almost a bit too harsh for me, but again, he does grow.

It’s a really interesting setting, small town Texas with a fat, femme gay hero, but it definitely works.  I love the idea that even if there legitimately are jerks out there, there are also just a lot of other folks dealing with their own issues and oblivious to how they come across.

Lots of great secondary characters, from Waylon’s twin Clem, her girlfriend Hannah, their parents, Tucker, and a whole host of other high school kids that play small parts.  I could imagine this place that wasn’t perfect, but had a lot of goodness.

I did listen to this one, and the narrator was okay.  He didn’t really have much for different voices, so it could take a bit to figure out who was speaking which bits of dialogue, which is a bummer for me.  His pacing was good, and he had a great voice for Waylon.  But I wouldn’t seek him out again.

So basically it hit a lot of truths, could be a bit too real at times, but also gave me this feeling of hope at the end.