Bumped by Megan McCafferty

It feels like I've known about Bumped by Megan McCafferty for ages. In fact, I think right after Perfect Fifths was released. I was glad that McCafferty was moving away from Jessica Darling, because even though I was happy with the way that Perfect Fifths turned out (save for the graphic shower scene!), I was ready for Jessica to be done. Especially after realizing that I had read Fourth Comings and not remembered it. Its a bad sign that someone like me (super fan during the first two books) can forget whole books.

Anyway. Knowing that there was a total departure was great for my soul.

I read Bumped on Monday, in the Milwaukee airport, and then on the plane. It isn't long; I finished it midway through the flight. While its an enjoyable young adult book, a pretty good way to spend a couple of hours traveling, there were a few flaws.

[Spoilers follow! Ye be warned]

Bumped is about the near future, when 20 somethings and 30 somethings can no longer have children, due to a virus. The virus basically renders most people permanently infertile between 18 and 20 years of age. Society goes from (now) hand wringing about teenage pregnancy to practically forcing it upon these teenagers.

The premise of how different segments of the population have coped is told through identical twin sisters, Melody and Harmony, who were separated at birth and raised in hugely different circumstances. Melody's parents have embraced teenage pregnancy, grooming their daughter to be a breeder, scoring her a huge contract. Harmony's parents are hugely religious, grooming their daughter (and all their children) to marry young and have children as soon as possible.

Harmony wants to witness to Melody, to take her back to the church and save her soul. Page 75:

My sister is still chaste. It's not too late to protect that gift of purity, but I need to intervene right now, to tell Lib that I will endure fire raining down from Heaven before I will allow my sister to prostitute herself for procreation and profit. The best investment she can make is in God.

Melody hates that Harmony is around. Had a good life going. Has a huge birthing contract, because she's pretty much perfect and will give birth to perfect children. Her parents borrowed against her reproductive power, and now need her to become a breeder. Page 89:

This strategic reinvestment in my brand, they believed, would up my market value and put me well over the original appraisal. And when the Jayden's bid came in so strong, it looked like I would definitely earn back everything they had borrowed and more.

Melody and Harmony take turns telling the story from their points of view. While getting the full spectrum of how society has changed is great, it does have one huge downfall: character development. Bumped is only 318 pages long and has two main characters. Both Melody and Harmony undergo a huge change; Melody decides that she isn't going to be her parents breeder, and Harmony learns that God might not be so formidable as she thought.

But I didn't quite feel the transition the way I thought I was meant to. There was just a lot going on. I didn't feel I knew the characters, and didn't feel like their transformation meant as much as it was supposed to. Especially since there's going to be a sequel. I feel like there could have been a slower transition, more character development, and more time for supporting cast if it had been longer or saved some of the change for next book.

The point of the book seemed to be that you have to let teenagers decide their own lives. Which is sort of hard, because they're at that stage between children and adult, and do you really trust teenagers to make the best decision? But forcing pregnancy upon children is serious. (Hell, I believe that forcing pregnancy upon anyone is wrong, but that's another blog post!) Teenagers are tasked with, basically, saving the human race. Forcing them into marriage/birth contracts, though, is the wrong thing to do.

I will say that some of this book is absolutely inspired. The quote to the first section from the President's State of the Union Address:

The United States of America once ranked above all industrialized nations in the realm of teen pregnancy. We were the undisputed queens of precocious procreation! We were number one before, and we can be number one again! 

I also like the egg cover, especially the back cover of the egg beginning to crack.

Will I read the next one? Yeah, yeah I will. I hope that the characters are fleshed out a little bit more. And I want to meet more quirky people, like Lib. It should be out around this time next year.

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Third (and Final) Impressions: Perfect Fifths

The senryu section wasn't that bad. All in all, the rest of the book went all right. Pleasurably. Except:

There's a graphic shower scene. One that feels like it belongs more in the fan-fic of Jessica and Marcus than in one of the actual books. I was blushing. And I'm not a school girl.

Its more like my complaint about the third person and senryus: the other books weren't like this. And Jessica Darling said that writing about sex made her feel kinda skeezy, so details were few.

This is the world I had settled into. I was not prepared for a masturbatory scene in a shower. Where he "rubs the shaft of his cock" while lathering with liquid soap. Its not like I don't read sex scenes frequently in books; I just wasn't ready for this one. Despite the fact that its one of the 10 Things You Need To Know About Perfect Fifths. The warning "Four Words: Marcus Flutie shower scene" were not enough.

I did like how Marcus did acknowledge Jessica's judginess. This wasn't something I had noticed when I first read Sloppy Firsts or Second Helpings. But she started to wear on me. Its a little like the character in Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep: she holds herself apart from everyone, judging everyone, and playing herself as the victim.

And now what, Megan McCafferty? This is what you're known for. Are you going to create a new character? Write other books?

First Impressions and Second Impressions: Perfect Fifths

It had become a ritual for this week, even though I had been told that all the fiction totes had been gone through and no, no Perfect Fifths. I know to disregard this, so on Thursday, I saw they were listed in our computer. Three copies.

And by Saturday, they were shelved. I pulled one off the shelf for myself.

It is a slight book. Not that the others were big and fat, but they were substantial. This combined with the knowledge that 70-some pages are dialogue and then there is about a thousand senryus, well, there just isn't much story left, is there? Worryingly slight as a book. As a conclusion, its slim.

It sat behind me throughout work. I couldn't bear to read it at work. That isn't what it deserves. Plus, I was still finishing Bliss by Lauren Myracle (plus the downer ending).

I read a few pages on the bus home, and then this morning. I am through the third person portion, and through all the dialogue. Much better than the third and fourth books. Maybe the problem in those was Marcus was too far away? But I am most skeptical of this poetry, mostly because I am invested in prose. I do not write poetry. I am bad at understanding poetry. Why oh why would someone change their writing style for the fifth (and final) installment of a series?

Writers Note: I was originally going to write this post last night, sans the parts that I'd read, because I hadn't read them yet. So this is two posts that had been planned in my head: first impressions in the bookstore, then impressions midway through.

Where is Perfect Fifths?

A week away and its not even in the store yet. Bad sign? What if my bookstore doesn't even carry it?

(Usually books arrive the Tuesday before they come out, or exactly one week before.)

Perfect Fifths: I'm still freaked out

I'm subscribed to Megan McCafferty's blog and to lead up to the release of Perfect Fifths, she's been running "10 Things You Need To Know" about it.

I wrote about this ages ago. I loved Sloppy Firsts and Charmed Seconds. Loved it. Read them each at least ten times. Charmed Thirds, however, was mediocre. And until I reread it, I wasn't really sure what Fourth Comings had been about.

The release date draws near. I haven't seen any copies around the store yet. I just want to look at it, to reassure myself. The only way I can think that this will be good is that the two bad books have one thing in common: no Marcus. For some reason, writing Jessica Darling without Marcus (and subsequently reading her) is laborious. So maybe it will actually be good.

But I'm a little scared. Like, 74 pages of CONVERSATION? Fifty-six Senryus??????? None of the other books are written this way. Let's take an example from Twilight series: Meyer changed the way the fourth book was written, and for that and other reasons, the fan base is deeply divided.

Anyway. The waiting continues.

I am not unhappy with Gregory Maguire

Earlier this week, I wrote how unhappy I was with Megan McCafferty for writing sub-par books using the same characters from extremely awesome books.

After reading A Lion Among Men, the third book in the Wicked Cycle by Gregory Maguire, I can honestly say I am not unhappy. I still found the reading pleasurable, still felt that I was learning more; not just the hidden history of the character of the original Wizard of Oz, but now I am learning more about the hidden history of the characters in Wicked. And I am still interested, very interested.

I can't remember when I read Wicked for the first time. Probably five or six years ago. But I've read it at least ten times since then, Son of a Witch three times. The second focused on characters entirely seperate from The Wizard of Oz, but A Lion Among Men gives the backstory of the Cowardly Lion, partially given in Wicked but fleshed out here.

And I wasn't disappointed. I didn't feel cheated, the way I felt cheated when I read Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty. I enjoyed myself, I felt like I was given answers, and that's really all you can ask for in a third book in a series.