Julie Murphy Books In Order

Publication Order of Christmas Notch Books

Publication Order of Dumplin' Books

Publication Order of Faith Herbert Origin Story Books

Publication Order of Meant To Be Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Julie Murphy is an American author born in 1985. She works at an academic library when she’s not writing. Julie Murphy resides in North Texas where she lives with her husband, her dog, and their pet cat. She also tries to catch stray cats in her spare time. Her first novel is called Side Effects May Vary and was published in 2014.

Her second novel is called Dumplin’ and was published in 2015. Her fifth novel was published in 2017 and is called Ramona Blue.

Alice is the main character in Side Effects May Vary, Murphy’s debut novel. Alice is a sixteen-year-old girl that has just recently been diagnosed with leukemia. Even though it’s helpful to stay positive, the doctors confirm that the prognosis is grim and the likelihood of her recovering is very little. She only has a little time left, so Alice vows that she will spend the final months of her life to right wrongs in any way that she sees fit and no one is going to tell her any differently.

Alice is convinced that she is dying, so she has nothing left to lose. She talks her friend Harvey into helping her with a crazy plan. It doesn’t hurt that Alice knows that Harvey had always had feelings for her and will help her with whatever she needs, especially considering the current circumstances.

Harvey agrees to help her with her bucket list, even though it is kind of bipolar in its aims. Some of the bucket list deals with revenge, like getting back at Alice’s arch nemesis and humiliating her ex-boyfriend. There are petty things on the list, but there are also nice things, like doing something nice out of the blue for a stranger. Alice is making an absurd amount of progress on her bucket list. She’s been living life like it’s going to end, and just when the score is settled on everything written on the bucket list, Alice finds out that her leukemia has gone into remission.

Now that Alice doesn’t have leukemia anymore– at least for the moment– she is forced to sit down and look at everything she has done or said with open eyes. She willed a lot of things to happen and spent a lot of time with Harvey in the process, who stuck by her side through everything. Now it’s time for Alice to admit what her true feelings for Harvey are and maybe even forge a future.

Even though her sickness is gone, Alice still has to deal with the consequences of her actions and the damage that she has done. Side Effects May Vary is a novel about a teen grappling with their own mortality and trying to live life along the way.

Dumplin’ is Julie Murphy’s second book. Similarly to Side Effects May Vary, this novel deals with the idea of a girl struggling to find her place in the world around her. Willowdean Dickson is a fat girl by her own admission and is a fearless main character to come on the scene. Dumplin’ is only her nickname, one given to her by her mom, who of course was a former beauty queen.

Despite her weight and her mother’s mainstream beauty, Willowdean is a girl who has always felt comfortable in her own skin. She doesn’t worry about fitting into a certain size or feeling insecure about herself. She just is herself. When things get tough, she always has her best friend by her side, Ellen. Ellen is a true natural beauty in the classic American fashion, and they are great friends.

Things have always been okay until Willowdean gets a new job. She starts working at Harpy’s, known around town as the local fast-food place. It is there where she meets the hot jock that is called Private School Bo. Willow is attracted to Bo and is a little surprised when he appears to return the interest and like her back. But is she just seeing what she wants to see?
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For the first time in her life, Will does not feel as confident in herself and her body. Especially since the hot former jock is hanging around her workplace and she has to be around him whenever they’re scheduled together. Will goes to take her confidence back by entering into a local pageant. Will thinks that the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant will show the world that she has just too much to offer as the skinnier girls.

So she sets out with a few other unlikely candidates to be in the pageant and show Clover City what she’s made of once and for all. In a world where beauty queens are all slim and smiling– just ask her mother– Willowdean will prove to them and maybe even herself that she can hold it down up there with the best of them and maybe even win.

An unlikely heroine in the fiction world, readers will come to fall in love with Dumplin’. It’s hard not to root for a character that is so easy to love and so happy to just be herself. This fat girl is here to steal everyone who reads this book’s heart, and she is not going to apologize for it. Set in the world of Texas with Dolly Parton songs and red candy suckers, this book is a fantastic follow-up to Murphy’s Debut Novel.

Readers should also check out Ramona Blue, an exciting fictional novel about one girl and the effects of Hurricane Katrina. She was only five when the hurricane hit, and ever since then, it has been Ramona and her family struggling to make it in Mississippi. Ramona has blue hair, likes girls, and wants something bigger than what’s there in Eulogy, Mississippi. With multiple jobs and parents that essentially force her to be the adult in the family and a pregnant sister, Ramona is feeling the weight.

So when her childhood friend Freddie comes back, she’s got a welcome new friend. Freddie shows her swimming and she falls in love, at the same time discovering that she might like Freddie too. Is this just a fluke, or is life more fluid than she thought?