Bumped (Bumped #1) by Megan McCafferty

Bumped features a dystopian world that takes place in 2036. In this time, there is a virus that makes everyone around the age of 18 infertile. This means that teenagers are the most important people in society, because they are the only ones that can move the human race along. This leads to parents paying teenage girls to be surrogates and being pregnant and getting pregnant being a fad.

Our two main characters are Melody and Harmony. They are identical twins that were separated at birth. Harmony lives in a super-religious community called Goodside, where she is trained to be a good wife, mother, and worshipper. Melody was raised to be a perfect surrogate so that she would land the best possible contract for pregnancy. Harmony finds out she has a twin and that her sister is "pregging for profit" and decides to journey to Melody's doorstep so that she can save her from her sins.

I was beyond confused at first. There was a lot of "neggy" slang that made it hard to follow along. I think that it would have been very helpful if there was a glossary at the end of the book, or footnotes explaining what these words were. It's like when I read the Uglies by Scott Westerfeld and everything was "bubbly" and I had no idea what that meant so I spent a lot of the book confused lol. Once you get used to that, it's fascinating and very interesting. It's a great idea and so much fun to be living in this world.

I liked Melody, she was easy to relate to with the whole fitting-in at high school thing. Harmony kinda pissed me off. She was very... religious. I don't have a problem with religious people, but she was just over the top. I found myself being very annoyed reading about her worshipping and all. She's just so innocent! Argh. Haha hard for me to relate to. It was also kinda confusing at moments because the names "Harmony" and "Melody" are very similar, so at times I was confused at who was who.

I wasn't too excited after I read the inside flap because of the similarities it had to a book I had recently read (Possession by Elana Johnson). They both had a character called Zen or Zenn and had a places called Goodside or Goodgrounds. Hmmm...

It was a little disturbing about how young all these pregnant girls are. It's kinda sad actually :( And in this book pregnancy is made up to be a glamorous thing, so maybe it isn't giving off the right vibe to teenage readers haha.

This book is supposed to take place in 2036. That's really not that long if you think about it. Now, would names REALLY change that much in that time? They have really foreign names like Shoko and Zen and Ram. In the 1800's which was hundreds of years ago, they had names like Elizabeth and Henry and stuff. And we still use those names today... I just don't think that names will change THAT much in 20 years. Anyway...

I didn't like the ending. The book basically ended in the middle of the scene, and it kinda sucks even though you know there's going to be a sequel.

The cover, not cute. If I hadn't been recommended this book, I probably never would have read this book. The covers are what mainly get me interested (I'm horrible, I know), and seeing a cover with an egg on it with the words "Bumped" does not seem very enthralling. Also, roughly translated, the book could be called "F*cked" because that's basically what bumping means. Now why would you want to read a book called that? It could have been way cuter, and the judging-before-reading could have been a lot better haha.

I liked how this wasn't your basic dystopian read. It's doesn't just focus on the romance, it's also about family. I would recommend it to an older teen, because its about a more mature topic, but the writing is targeted towards a younger teen so it wouldn't be fore everyone.

Despite how I seemed to spend most of this review criticizing things, I really did enjoy the story. It was frightening and fascinating at the same time, while being humorous at others. It was thought provoking and the concept is a really great idea. It's original and fantastic, though it takes a while to get used to.

I'm sorry I seemed to find more bad things than good, but overall its a pretty good read. So 4 out of 5 stars . I probably liked it better than Matched (but not as much as the Uglies series of course). I will be looking forward to the sequel, which I hope gives more information about the virus and the past. You might want to give this one a try! Thanks to Talia for recommending it to me :)