Review: Bumped

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

• Pub. Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Balzer + Bray
• Format: Hardcover , 336pp

Here is the book blurb:

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society. Girls sport fake baby bumps and the school cafeteria stocks folic-acid-infused food.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and have never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Up to 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 Goodside, a religious community, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to convince Melody 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.

From New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty comes a strikingly original look at friendship, love, and sisterhood—in a future that is eerily believable.

My review:

I read Bumper and loved it.

One of the things that I appreciated from the book as a reader was how the characters voice in the book identifies with how teens talk.
Bumped brings us to a future dystopia where birth after 20 doesn't happen, and you can basically take out a loan on your daughter's uterus to buy the new car. Your school is a showground for your baby bump and no girl keeps her baby but sells it off to pop the next.

This future world was quite a spectacle but what gripped me was our main character Melody. She embodies the language of her generation yet has the drive and mind that changes her view on the outcome of her present concept of reality and of how the ways things are and done. As her separated twin sister Harmony comes into her life and tries to bring her into a religious group, Melody tries to keep her image and standing in school even while she is getting older and is still has not been 'bumped'.

With the help of her friends and family a rescue in store! Bumped takes us to a whole new teen dystopia where your genes and your eggs are your future and breeding brings in he bucks.

Who will get bumped next?



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