Release Date: April 16th, 2011
Genre:  Dystopia, Relationships
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Pages: 336
Rating:
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Summary:

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

Review: I actually surprised myself with how much I wanted to read this book. Many of you old followers know (and many of you new followers will soon find out) that I'm very cautious when it comes to sex in novels. In fact, I rarely ever like it. From the description, you can clearly see that sex is pretty much all Bumped is about. So I'll be focusing my review on how the author, and myself, dealt with that.

The important thing for me in reading this book was to stay detached. I didn't allow my personal beliefs to "get in the way" of the story, which is crucial. (Please note that I said my personal beliefs not my personal standards. Y'all know I never sacrifice standards for any book) If you go into this story expecting something wholesome, you're going to end it offended. This book deals with all the heavy hitters, teenage sex, cult-religion, non-cult (but still crazy) religion, and more. I don't think there was a single character in this book that I actually could relate with. They were all either too far left or right for me.

However, this detached state of being made this book fascinating. She did an excellent job of crafting a world that was [to me] OUTRAGEOUSLY offensive, and yet I didn't get offended at all. All of the offensive words had been slang-ified so that they didn't bug me at all (there were three instances of the f* word, which was WAY fewer than I was expecting). These characters aren't immoral. Because in this world that McCafferty has created, the ideal of "morality" has been COMPLETELY redefined! And during the sex scenes (yes, there are some. And they aren't explicit at all, but there's no doubt as to what's happening) my brain was working through so many things so fast that I wasn't bothered by them.

If anything bothered me in this book it would be the religion. It seemed like anyone who was religious was seen as "crazy." And granted, most of the religious people in this book were crazy, but still. I don't like it when authors do that. If you don't let that bug you too much, though, then the story flows pretty nicely.

Yes, this book is still certainly for older teens because it deals with very mature issues. But all in all I really liked it. I highly recommend that try to get your hands on a copy. In fact, I'm giving this book away right now! Click here to enter, you have until March 31st!



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.