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. [More from Goodreads]

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.

I thought I had formed an opinion about Bumped within its first ten pages. That’s the thing about literature. If you don’t keep an open mind, by the end of a novel, you find yourself regretting not having done so.

At times, Melody made me cringe. Her constant use of “for serious” and “Gah” reminded me of the readers’ gripe of word usage in NY Times Bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey. Her personality as a whole made for one of the most immature novels I have ever read.

Harmony’s immaturity, contrastingly, was not her fault. Her upbringing in the Church shielded her from lessons to be learned in the “real world”, so to speak, and she was immature because that was who she was, not who she chose to be. In between “Melody” chapters, Harmony made the first half of the novel bearable. She was a kind soul with the best of intentions. (I read that readers had a hard time remembering who was who due to the similar names. The twins were so different, though, I never encountered this problem.)

The novel seemed to start out in the middle of the sentence. I went into this futuristic jumble of words not knowing what the heck was going on. It took me several chapters to get my bearings, and yet, was still confused. It took longer than necessary, in my opinion, to get to explanations of the terms used more than often, terms that were central to the story and understanding the world of the novel.

So you had this book that you really wanted to like, but halfway through just ended up being this strewn together piece of words that could hardly be considered dystopian. If it weren’t for the main plot line, it would just be this mediocre teen fiction novel that didn’t necessarily have anything special about it.

And then, something happened. Melody was still irritating me with her “for serious” every two seconds, but strangely, I began to turn the pages more quickly. Suspense bled the end of one chapter into the beginning of the next. Melody and Harmony began to realize their place in this world, learn from their mistakes, and through those mistakes, find each other as sisters. Love stories developed. The writing style matured and deep emotion suddenly seeped onto the page. This behavior built until the end left me breathless, and I already have the sequel Thumped on my Nook.

I’m so glad I stuck with Bumped against my better judgment throughout the first part of the novel, because it ended up a very intriguing YA dystopian novel that offered up an original story that I’m looking forward to continuing with the sequel. If only it would have started out that way, but at least it picked up eventually.

About Allie Burke

An American novelist, Allie Burke writes books she can’t find in the bookstore. Having been recognized as writing a “kickass book that defies the genre it’s in”, Allie writes with a prose that has been labeled poetic and ethereal. Her life is a beautiful disaster, flowered with the harrowing existence of inherited eccentricity, a murderous family history, a faithful literature addiction, and the intricate darkness of true love. These are the enchanting experiences that inspire Allie’s fairytales. Violet Midnight is her first novel. You can follow Allie on Twitter here.