Bumped (Bumped, #1)

by Megan McCafferty

[celinenyx]

I didn't really like this book. It was completely over the top for me. I like books with a message, as long as it's done subtly. Bumped is just one bombastic piece of culture shock with messages flying all over the place, with the subtlety of a grenade-impact.

The blurb sounds interesting, and the simple cover appealed to me. There are the twin-sisters split from birth, a virus that makes having children after the teenage years impossible. And don't forget we're living in 2035, so advanced technology is present.

This book would have been so much better if the main characters, Harmony and Melody, were even remotely close to likeable. I was in constant discussion which one of the twin sisters I disliked more; the annoying my-God-is-better-than-yours sister or the equally annoying what-others-think-of-me-is-the-most-important-thing-evar sister. Even worse is that they don't develop as characters, but that towards the end of the book there is a sudden "halleluja!" moment where they for no reason at all change into a "better" person. Ugh.

I think this book was more written to shock its audience than truly have something to say. It's a continuing rampage full of made up words, orgies, [b:Brave New World|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SJW829TEL._SL75_.jpg|3204877] kind of drugs and a whole belief system based on supply and demand. Add the Psalm-spewing twin for some contrast, and you have Bumped. Even though categorised as young-adult, I would definitely not recommend this for your fifteen-year-old. This book is more on the adult than the young side.


Review copy received through Netgalley.