Book Review: Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Title: Bumped 

Author: Megan McCafferty
Series: Bumped #1
Pages: 323
Publisher: Corgi Childrens
Date of Publication: 4th August 2011
Source: Publisher*
Synopsis from Goodreads: 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.

My Thoughts:
Bumped is possibly one of the weirdest books I have EVER read. The whole subject of the book was peculiar and it felt a little wrong, but I was intrigued to read it, as I was interested in how anyone could write a story where it is acceptable and even expected for teens to become pregnant.

Firstly, I think that the synopsis is a little bit misleading. It gave me the impression that NOBODY over the age of 18 could have kids, and that ALL teenagers have to have the older generations' babies for them. In actual fact, it is only the adults who don't live in 'Goodside' (the Church-y Godly place) who are infertile, and not all teenagers actually take part in the Bumping program (where the teens have babies for adults). Maybe it was me misunderstanding or misreading it, but I started this book thinking it was one thing, and then once I was about 30 pages in I realised that I had the wrong idea about it.

At the beginning of the book, I didn't particularly like either Melody or Harmony. Melody was arrogant and completely full of herself, and I thought that Harmony was the same, but in a completely different way. However, as the story went on and the characters developed, I think they became less of polar opposites, and they became a lot more likeable and I enjoyed reading about them. I really liked Zen too, and at the end he was so sweet :)

There was one thing that annoyed me throughout the whole book, and that was the HUGE amount of slang and language used that was not explained. Words like reproasthetical and pregg and neg were not explained, and I had no idea what they mean. I STILL have no idea what a lot of them meant. And there was a whole system called the MiNet - which I'm guessing is like the internet - that is used a lot in the book but that wasn't explained either, and that was confusing even before they started talking about blinding it...

However, about half way through the book I began to get used to the slang and I could enjoy the story a lot more. I thought the plot was strong and interesting, even though I didn't think that too much actually happened, and Megan managed to make such a weird and unimaginable storyline feel pretty real and believable. After a slow start it got better and better, and the last third of the book didn't take me very long at all!

Overall, Bumped is a very good YA debut, but I think that it is not for everyone. I think it is definitely NOT a book for younger readers, purely because of the subject matter, but if you can put the weirdness of the story aside, and can get used to the slang, I would definitely recommend it to you, especially if you are a fan of dystopian fiction.

My Rating:

I give it 3 Feet!

Challenges:
2011 Debut Author Challenge #20
2011 100+ Reading Challenge #60