September 15, 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Julie Murphy's groundbreaking novel, Dumplin', which has since been adapted for film by Netflix and become one of the most referenced fat-positive books for young adults on shelves. It's also the first book in a series that ultimately centers fat and queer joy, which are themes of Murphy's prolific body of work for kids, teens, and adults.

Dumplin' follows Willowdean Dixon, a fat teenager who feels totally at home in her body—a refreshing change from most fat-focused narratives at the time. She mourns the loss of her aunt Lucy, who was also fat, and who introduced Wil to the inimitably Dolly Parton.

Willowdean's best friend, the thin and conventionally beautiful Ellen Dryver, also loves Willowdean exactly as she is.

However, most of the other people in their small town of Clover City, Texas, are quick to point out Willowdean's body as a problem. Her mother, a former beauty queen, wants Willowdean to slim down. She blames Lucy's death on her weight and fears Wil's future will look the same. She's the town's pageant director and something of a local celebrity, where everyone but Willowdean and Ellen seem obsessed with taking home the crown themselves.

When Willowdean takes a job at a local fast food joint and meets Bo, a hot former jock, she falls fast—and to her surprise, he likes her back. Suddenly, her confidence dips, and she does something drastic to try to get it back. She decides to enter the Clover City Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant herself. But she's not the only misfit to hit the stage, making it a competition for the history books.

Dumplin' Has Made a Massively Positive Impact

Earlier this year, I interviewed several queer, fat YA authors for Publishers Weekly and nearly all of them cited Dumplin' as the first time they saw themselves represented in a book. In those conversations, we noted how recently the book came out—just a decade ago—and how much and how little has changed since then.

On the one hand, there are more fat authors and fat characters on shelves than ever before, particularly in young adult and adult romance. On the other, fatness is still vastly underrepresented in all genres of literature. When it is present, it's often depicted with disdain.

Authors like Murphy have proven this doesn't have to be the default. For Publishers Weekly, I spoke with Murphy about her new book Let Them Stare, co-authored with Jonathan Van Ness, which follows a gender-nonconforming teen with big-city fashion dreams.

“I’ve always found the most freedom in feeling like everyone else—that this thing I’m experiencing is specific to me, but at the same time it’s not at all,” Murphy explains. “I can live the life I want not in spite of the body I have, but with the body I have and the sexuality I have. Those things are what make me, and there’s also so much more.”

The success of Dumplin' and its predecessor, the award-winning but significantly darker Fat Angie series by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo, have opened the door for more fat authors to tell their stories. Willowdean's joy, in particular, has also resonated with millions of readers, and the Netflix movie has made Dumplin' even more popular.

The Difference of a Decade

It's difficult to believe that Dumplin' is already 10 years old and simultaneously that it's only 10 years old. I remember seeing the cover at my local bookstore and feeling wary of it, having been burned too many times by promotional copy that said a story was fat-positive only for it to turn out to be a weight-loss narrative. I read it only after seeing buzz online, and I was honestly blown away.

Dumplin' was the first book in which I saw myself represented, too. Not just represented, but celebrated. Not the absolute butt of the joke, nor the funny, fat sidekick with ridiculous dialogue. Not the villain the author finds disgusting. The main character. The hero. I was stunned.

At that point in my fat liberation journey, it was incredibly impactful, and I will never forget it. Seeing how well Dumplin' has done over the last decade and how many more fat narratives exist because of it is incredible. Although I grieve the fact that my younger self didn't have books like it when she absolutely needed them, I am so grateful that current and future generations can read about fat characters without internalizing anti-fatness and hatred.

Dumplin' is far from perfect. But the thing that still stands out about it for me, a full 10 years after its release, is that even when Willowdean struggles with insecurity, she doesn't make any attempts to lose weight. She doesn't give into her mom's pressure to be thin, nor does she stop shouting down anti-fat comments from bullies. She lashes out, as many of us do when we're hurt, and she makes wrong decisions. After all, she is a teenager. Even the most level-headed teens struggle in the pressure cooker of high school.

This complexity works in the narrative's favor, rather than undermining Murphy's goal of writing a fat character who loves herself. Although Wil questions why Bo would like someone who looks like her (a trope that's still present in many fat romances, especially if their love interest is thin or otherwise conventionally attractive), she doesn't seem to think there would be a problem with them being together. She just knows how they would be perceived and probably harassed by others, which is particularly daunting.

Reconnecting with herself as she works with a group of drag queens who were friends with her late aunt, still determined to compete in the pageant, Willowdean finds a new depth of appreciation not just for herself, but for outcasts of all stripes. Systemic anti-fatness be damned.

I will always, always love this book.

Dumplin' and Beyond

If you have yet to read Dumplin' or its companion novels, Puddin' and Pumpkin, now is the perfect time to pick them up at your local library or add them to your personal one.

In the next 10 years, I hope fat representation becomes so common in books that it's no longer necessary to point out how rare and surprising it is to see it. I hope the conversation can grow to contain more nuance and complexity about how we talk about fatness and why, beyond whether fat characters are allowed to live a fully embodied existence or are forced to shrink themselves.

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Thanks for reading, and Happy Anniversary, Dumplin'!