Book Thoughts: Bumped

Title: Bumped
Author: Megan McCafferty
Series: Bumped #1

I just recently finished this book and I went into it having read a number of mixed reviews. People either loved it because it was an excellent social commentary or hated it because the slang was over the top and the science didn't make any sense. I fell in with the first group, despite thinking after the first chapter that I would be in the second group.

Bumped is set in a future world where a virus has made most people over the age of 18 or so infertile, so teenage girls are paid to get pregnant and have deliveries (can't call them babies, that would imply emotional attachment) for wealthy couples who can't have their own children. Melody's adoptive parents know she's gorgeous, smart, and talented and have set her on the path to being a RePro (reproductive professional). Harmony, Melody's identical twin sister, was adopted by the church. She finds the whole "pregging" culture unthinkable.

In a lot of ways, the premise of the novel was over-the-top. The first chapter made me almost not want to finish the book. But I kept going and I ended up really engaged in the characters and the way they felt about their environments. There really is a fascinating commentary on the way we oversexualize women, both in the secular and religious worlds. Also, some of the marketing stuff hits a little too close to home.

Short version: I didn't expect to like this book, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it and am definitely planning to look for the sequel.

Book Thoughts: The Pregnancy Project

Title: The Pregnancy Project
Author: Gaby Rodriguez

Gaby Rodriguez is my age -- high school class of 2011. I think that only made her story that much more powerful for me. She grew up the daughter of a single mom and the youngest of eight kids; her mom had her first child at age fifteen. Most if not all of her older siblings became parents as teens. Gaby has spent her whole life hearing that she'll never amount to anything and that she'll be a teen mom too.

She's done everything she can to reject those stereotypes; she's in the top five percent of her class, she isn't sexually active, and she has plans to be the first in her family to go to college. But still the stereotypes are there.

So for her senior project, she pretends to be pregnant. Her project is about the negative effect of stereotypes, and she lives it. For six months, she endures the snide comments and social pressure facing soon-to-be teen moms, telling only a handful of people (including her mom and boyfriend, but not her siblings or her boyfriend's parents).

Gaby deals with an incredible amount of pressure and her experience is truly powerful. I am simply awed by what a girl my age did to reach out to those around her, and I wish everyone could read this book and see how damaging stereotypes truly are and the strength of character it takes to press on despite having everyone set against you.

I don't have words for the effect this book had on me. The world I grew up in is so vastly different from the one Gaby grew up in, and her story is eye-opening. Definitely, definitely read it.