Patched | Dumplin-

“You were the best,” the girl had said. “You looked like you were having fun.”

So go ahead. Be a . The world needs more of them. Dumplin-

is not just a story about a fat girl in a pageant. It is a manifesto for anyone who has ever felt like they are too much—too loud, too big, too weird, too queer, too emotional—for the room they are standing in. “You were the best,” the girl had said

After Aunt Lucy dies, Willowdean clings to her fatness because Lucy was also fat. Losing weight feels like betraying a ghost. This nuanced take on grief—where food becomes memory and weight becomes love—is rarely handled with such grace in YA literature. “You were the best