Bumped
written by Megan McCafferty
I have no gripe with the plot of this book, nor the characters. I thought the alternate futuristic vision of a teenage pregnancy obsessed universe was fascinating, and masterfully developed by McCafferty. This was a good book on every account but one--the fact that it, like many others we are seeing nowadays, is regrettably not a standalone book. The story is laid out, and most major plot threads are resolved. Done with. So why is it that the author/publisher seem to think there is more to tell? I'd much rather be talking about the social and political significance of a novel such as this, but apparently, the story this book set out to tell isn't complete, so instead, I'm sitting here, complaining about the fact that the story isn't done, even though it should be. This story would have worked well as a stand-alone. As more than one book though? No way. The only story left to tell is overly-contrived and pointlessly drawn out. There's no good that can come out of sequels to this book, this book that is already great on its own.
Rating: You know what, I'd easily give this a 5-star rating, except right when things started getting good and plotlines were being resolved, there were things left wide open, and that ruins the story for me. 3/5.
Hmm. We've never really been sure about this book -- do we want to read it? or not? -- but we agree that a lot of stories seem to be dragged out to fit into the oh-so-popular trilogy, and thus we're getting more excited about really good standalone novels (like ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS or LIPS TOUCH).
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