Archive for March, 2011
It’s a way for bloggers to celebrate the end of the week with a nice re-cap of their weekly posts and to answer a random question.
Waiting On Wednesday
REVIEW! Bumped by Megan McCafferty
Die for Me
When Kate Mercier’s parents die in a tragic car accident, she leaves her life-and memories-behind to live with her grandparents in Paris. For Kate, the only way to survive her pain is escaping into the world of books and Parisian art. Until she meets Vincent.
Mysterious, charming, and devastatingly handsome, Vincent threatens to melt the ice around Kate’s guarded heart with just his smile. As she begins to fall in love with Vincent, Kate discovers that he’s a revenant-an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save the lives of others. Vincent and those like him are bound in a centuries-old war against a group of evil revenants who exist only to murder and betray. Kate soon realizes that if she follows her heart, she may never be safe again.
Bumped
Megan McCafferty
SUMMARY (FROM AMAZON):
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.
Melody is the independent thinker in a conformist society that’s essentially forcing teenage girls to get pregnant. Harmony is the typical long-lost sister, coming from a different part of society that focuses on religion (Religious references are used often. They do not at all make the story feel preachy). Melody grows as a character, but I can’t say the same for Harmony. It really feels as though Melody tackles each of her problems and looks to resolve them, while Harmony’s just.. there. She’s a bit too fickle as a character, her thoughts and motives inconsistently changing; I didn’t know when to believe her, and that left me a bit estranged from her character.
As for their world, it’s very thought-out, with a clash of old and new. Girls are encouraged to become pregnant multiple times before they’re eighteen, guys act as nothing more than sex toys, and parents basically market their children to reproduce. The estrangement from the parents plays a weird role in Bumped. Melody’s parents appear to be over-protective and have her entire life planned. But midway through the novel, they drop off the radar and are never really mentioned again; this made some situations more unbelievable.
The writing is catchy and descriptive. The romance is a bit forced and somewhat unnatural in their setting. The ending doesn’t feel like an ending. But all in all Bumped is a fresh idea with a really good execution.
