Review: Thumped

Genre: Young Adult
Title: Thumped
Author: Megan McCafferty
Rating: 1.9/3

Plotline (from Goodreads):

It’s been thirty-five weeks since twin sisters Harmony and Melody went their separate ways. And now their story has become irresistible: twins separated at birth, each due to deliver twins…on the same day!

Married to Ram and living in Goodside, Harmony spends her time trying to fit back into the community she once believed in. But she can’t forget about Jondoe, the guy she fell for under the strangest of circumstances.

To her adoring fans, Melody has achieved everything: a major contract and a coupling with the hottest bump prospect around. But this image is costing her the one guy she really wants.

The girls’ every move is analyzed by millions of fans eagerly counting down to “Double Double Due Date.” They’re two of the most powerful teen girls on the planet, and they could do only one thing to make them even more famous:

Tell the truth.

My take:

The idea for this book just amazes me. The Giver, anyone?

I love authors who can think outside the box like this! Our society nowadays is so filled with people saying teenagers should not be having sex and getting pregnant that it seems disconcerting when the situation is completely flipped.

Actually no, that's not completely true. What actually struck me as strangest of all was how quick and easy it was for me as a reader to adapt for this new scenario, because really, as different as the situation was, it was almost the same in a very different yet not-so-different way. (I'm not making sense? Yeah, didn't think so.) In this mini-world, society still exerts the same pressure, teenagers still deals with the same type of psychological problems, rebellion is still quite natural amongst youngsters, and all the rest. The expectations may be different, but its effects are really still the same.

The storyline on the other hand didn't excite me quite so much. It was a classic love rectangle with a twist, and as much as that doesn't seem generic, the young adult genre has done such a good job of pulling at your heartstrings that it really is. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not so much that this book's storyline was bad, but that the overall level of expectation for me is just that much higher in this genre.

Thumped is still a great book, and I'd still recommend it to all young-adult readers everywhere. Though the storyline didn't quite do it for me, I was still relatively entertained the whole way through. So good on you, Megan McCafferty!