Bumped

McCafferty, M. (2011). Bumped. New York, NY: Balzer & Bray. 

Genre: Science Fiction (YA)

In the world in which Melody and Harmony live, teen pregnancy is nothing to frown upon, in fact it is ENCOURAGED! Teens are paid ridiculous amounts of money to be surrogates or sell their babies to couples because a virus has caused an infertility crisis among older generations. 

Melody and Harmony are identical twins that were adopted by different families as sickly infants. Melody was raised by scientists who devoted their lives to giving her the best of everything so that she would be the most sought after girl for a rich family needing a baby. Harmony was raised in a town with a completely different set of values. She has God and her religion marries off teen girls so that they can have babies within their family. The sisters didn’t know each other growing up but Harmony runs away to save Melody from her sinful life…nor does she have another motive? Melody’s perfect life quickly becomes a whirlwind of trouble.

Reaction: It took me a while to get into this one. Honestly, only the last 100 pages demanded my attention. Harmony’s religiosity is annoying. Don’t get me wrong, I do not wish to bash religion but Harmony hides behind her religion…maybe because she has not formed her own identity or she is confused. Either way, it is overkill. There seems to be some discrepancies in how Melody perceives “bumping”. Zen’s humor and bluntness on the topic is refreshing and his character is the shining star of the novel. While, this was not the most enticing sci-fi YA novel, it was interesting and I look forward to seeing how Melody and Harmony deal with the issues that arose in the ending, in the second book, Thumped.