2011 book 81

Megan McCafferty's Bumped
OK, so I LOVE McCafferty (she wrote the Jessica Darling books, which if you haven't read, you really should get on that), and I'm a pretty big fan of YA dystopia-type stories, and thus I was very excited about this story. Now, it's a very readable and fun story, so don't let my upcoming comments dissuade you from reading it, but I found it a bit disappointing. The premise is that it's the near future and over 75 percent of people become infertile when they turn 18ish, so there are lots of pregnant teenagers being glorified in their culture (McCafferty has an author's note in the beginning talking about TV shows like Teen Mom and our own society). Our protagonists are Melody--who has contracted with a rich family to bear them a child, as soon as an appropriate match is found, but who clearly has feelings for her best guy friend--and her twin sister Harmony--who was raised in a religious family and thinks pregging ["pregging" and "negging" are two of the only pieces of near-future slang that McCafferty employs, which I frankly appreciated] for profit/out-of-wedlock is wrong, and wants to save her sister.

I think my problems with this book stem from the fact that I wanted it to go deeper. McCafferty is a great storyteller and I know she does teen angst and romance really, really well, and really, really believably. She notes that this is her first book intended for a YA audience (I guess the Jessica Darling books were supposed to be more coming-of-age/chick lit?) and that shows. It feels predictable, but not in an entirely satisfying way. I wanted to know more about the sisters' thoughts and feelings about their roles in society--there are a lot of interesting things that McCafferty does with this, but it feels very surface-level. It just reads like it's meant for a young audience. And part the end was a little confusing. But as I said, it's very readable--I read it quickly--and entertaining, and has plenty of nice little humorous bits. B.

__

An e-galley was provided by the publisher.