Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Summary from Good Reads:

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents are forced to pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and had never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Until now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they are searching for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Harmony has spent her whole life in religious Goodside, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to bring Melody back to Goodside and convince her that “pregging” for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls’ lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common. 

I wanted to like this book, but I didn't. I wanted to stop reading, but I didn't.  I'm not really sure why I kept reading.  Wishful thinking?  This was a hard book for me. The concept was interesting, but somehow it just didn't live up to my expectations.  Though to be honest I'm not really sure what those expectations were.

It's a dystopian young adult novel, which is something I normally enjoy reading.  In the interest of fairness, maybe as a parent, I couldn't get past the disturbing concept of a society that not only encourages teen pregnancy, but pays for it!  That combined with the sad fact that I didn't really care for any of the characters made this a very disappointing read. I found Melody and Harmony to be confusing. I understand that they didn't know each other, but I didn't feel like they really knew themselves.  Sometimes, characters who are searching for self understanding can create a good story, but in this case they just come across as flat and underdeveloped.

Another thing that bothered me was the lack of adults. In a world where everyone turns infertile after the age of 18, I would expect there at least to be some adults who would be extremely protective of children and teens.  I know it's a dystopian teen centered society, but surely there could have been one semi-reasonable adult. Harmony's ability to just leave her ultra religious community didn't ring true as well.

I'll admit that I'm curious to see how the story ends, but I'm not sure I'm curious enough to spend my valuable reading time reading any more books in this series.

1 comment:

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

It definitely looks like a book I'd like to read. Thank you for sharing it!