Feiwel and Friends
April 05, 2016
368 pagesadd to Goodreads/
buy from Book Depository/or Amazon
Celestine North lives a perfect life. She's a model daughter and sister, she's well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she's dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan.
But then Celestine encounters a situation where she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule. And now faces life-changing repercussions.
She could be imprisoned. She could be branded. She could be found FLAWED.
In her breathtaking young adult debut, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern depicts a society where obedience is paramount and rebellion is punished. And where one young woman decides to take a stand that could cost her-everything.
The idea of legislating or policing morality, is not something new. How it's done in Flawed is - or at least feels - that way, though.
Dystopian novels with authoritarian governments , strict societies, even our own histories has examples of rules, regulations or laws being made, ostensibly for the greater good, that work to separate a section of people from society. Whatever the intended goal was, it is rarely the (entire) outcome.
The premise of Flawed did feel a bit reminiscent of books like Delirium by Lauren Oliver where there's this 'good' thing being done, to help solve a problem they had and the main character accepts it's goodness, its rightness and doesn't think too much of 'outsiders.' I feel like that's its own archetype now, though. The characters themselves, what's being done and why, it's all very original.
I liked Celestine from the beginning. Her love of rules, logic, sense and being factually correct makes her view of the Guild, the Flawed, the whole system intriguing. It also leads to an incident that is interesting but also makes complete (yes) sense that is her 'mistake' and gets her into trouble.
The character we get in Celestine and the way that author Cecelia Ahern approaches not only what finding people Flawed means for society but also for an individual, is compelling, thought provoking and really pulls you into the story. It is one of those things that you want to say would never happen but (especially as its established and presented in the novel) you can see how it would.
The author does a great job showing how all facets of a persons life are impacted - some are definitely a surprise and places I wouldn't think would see effects. Celestine is a great character for the focus to be on. With her acceptance of the system and her belief in its rightness we're able to see, with much more frankness, just how wrong things are than if we'd had a 'rebel' main character.
I very much enjoyed Flawed, Celestine's character and growth we see in her, all while she stays true to that character we were first introduced to. While their society is not one I like, I love how fully the author has imagined it and brought it to life. There was much more to Flawed than I anticipated and the ending - along with all that transpired up to that point - really has me ready to read Book 2!
(The last thing I want to say is that if Celestine reminded me of any other character, it was Katniss from The Hunger Games series. Though I won't tell you from which part of those books she minded me of her.)
Question: Wasn't The Book of Tomorrow supposed to be a YA book? (Or marketed to YA readers?)
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