Interview: Megan McCafferty + Thumped

I'm extraordinarily excited today to welcome author Megan McCafferty to the blog to answer a few questions about her newest release, Thumped (released April 24th from Balzer + Bray, you can read my review HERE). Both Bumped and Thumped are fascinating and truly thought-provoking reads, forcing us to ask ourselves some less-than comfortable questions and making them worthwhile reads for that very reason.

There are myriad of t-shirt slogans and music lyrics in both Bumped and Thumped that sometimes make us do a double take just to make sure we read them correctly. Do you remember the first slogan that popped into your head when you got the idea for Bumped?

I can’t remember what came first, but I do know how I went about it. For five summers I worked on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. As anyone who has watched Jersey Shore can tell you, graphic (in all senses of the word) T-shirts are big business. The trashier, the better. So I’d ask myself, “Would Sand Tropez souvenir shop sell BORN 2 BREED tank tops? How about DO THE DEED booty shorts? Would someone get a HUMAN NAYCHA tattoo?” 

There are pros and cons to both Melody and Harmony’s drastically different upbringings. If you had to choose between life in Goodside or life outside, which would you choose?

I’d choose life in Otherside, with the option to rebel.

Let’s say Melody and Harmony suddenly find themselves transported back in time to Victorian London. What do you think would shock each of them the most about society’s views on courtship and marriage at that time?

Harmony would be surprised by how little has changed. Melody might be a little bit relieved that she’s not pressured to have sex—at first. But then she would quickly realize that repression is just another form of oppression.

Bumped and Thumped are books that inspire conversation–the moment we put them down we feel the need to tell someone about them and see what kind of reaction they have to what we’ve said. What’s the last book you read that made you want to immediately call someone and share with them everything you liked or didn’t like about it?

Thank you for saying that! I wrote BUMPED and THUMPED hoping I’d inspire readers to discuss uncomfortable issues. Conversation is more constructive than silence.

I’m re-reading THE HUNGER GAMES with my son for the first time since it came out in 2008. I just sent an email to my thirty-something brother-in-law telling him he HAS to read the series. He was a Classics major in college and teaches Latin and there are so many references in the novel to ancient Rome and Greece. He’ll appreciate those allusions more than I ever could.  

We don’t get to experience this world through Jondoe’s eyes at all, but he is very much a catalyst for a lot of the changes in both Harmony and Melody’s lives. What’s one specific thing about Harmony he would say made him want to change his life?

At first Jondoe is attracted to Harmony because she’s not following the RePro playbook as all his other “business” partners. She’s as hard-to-get as it gets for a professional sperminator and Jondoe is turned on by the challenge.

Harmony and Jondoe have been profoundly affected by their religious upbringings. And yet, they’re also very familiar with the more secular pleasures of the flesh. They share a desire to break away from the versions of faith they’ve been brought up to believe in, but don’t want to abandon them entirely. Ultimately, Jondoe and Harmony are on a similar spiritual journey, one that might be made easier if spent in each other’s company. 

Is there on particular aspect of Bumped or Thumped you thought might cause the largest number of conflicting opinions but then surprisingly didn’t, or one element that caused controversy you didn’t see coming?

I thought more readers would understand immediately that I was writing satire. I set out to send-up the culture wars. Everything—the language, the characters, the plot—is intentionally over-the-top. I mined dark humor from the grim scenario, and it’s an uncomfortable laughter I’m aiming for. It’s kind of laughter where you ask yourself whether you should be laughing. And that’s the whole point.

Were there any alternate titles for the books?

No. It was always two narrators, two books: BUMPED and THUMPED.

If Melody and Harmony could give the young women of today one piece of advice, what might each of them say?

I think they’d say something similar. “Be yourself always…Which is hard to do when you’re still finding out who you are.”

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions Megan! More information on Megan and her books can be found here:

Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon

Review: Thumped

THUMPED (Bumped #2)

Megan McCafferty
Young adult/dystopian
304 pages
Balzer + Bray
Available April 24th
Received from author for review

THE STORY (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 THOUGHTS

Thumped returns us to a world that dropped our jaws when we initially encountered it in Bumped, and though we’re more prepared for it with this sequel, we find we’re no more comfortable with this future the second time around. Perhaps part of the reason Ms. McCafferty’s distorted reality is so unnerving is not because we can’t possibly imagine a time in which we’d view the sexual exploitation of our young men and women as necessary no matter how desperate our future selves might be, but rather because in many ways Harmony and Melody’s world is simply an exaggerated version of what has been historically accepted as the norm. In a not-so incredibly distant past women were forced into sexual relationships at shockingly young ages, passed from father to husband in business transactions meant to consolidate wealth and power through the begetting of heirs; their bodies used for procreation alone while the same cool indifference was given to their emotional state as this society gives to Melody and Harmony’s.

Recognizing that Ms. McCafferty’s sex-centric world with its Reproductive Professionals and its bumping contracts has a direct link to our reality if we follow the line of thinking from this future all the way back to our pasts is part of what makes both Bumped and Thumped so uncomfortably fascinating. However much we’d like to deny the potential for this society to exist, the connecting thread our minds can't help but draw between future and past simply refuses to be disregarded as pure fiction. Though Bumped and Thumped may be too over the top and too outrageous for some, it can be said that anyone reading will certainly not walk away from these books without an opinion on them–either positive or negative–thus making them worth reading for no other reason than they inspire a great deal of thought, introspection, and conversation.

While Melody, Harmony and Jondoe were extreme examples of their disparate upbringings in Bumped–completely foreign to us in the beginning with their different approaches to sex and intimacy–Thumped finds them all remarkably more tangible, each of them having moved slowly but inexorably to the center of the spectrum where independent thought thrives. Instead of simply living their lives in accordance with the tenets of their respective factions, they draw us deeper into their lives by questioning what they’ve been told is “right” and refusing to be a carbon copy of what their society considers ideal. While we don’t necessarily feel a visceral attachment to them, we can’t help but respect the changes we see in them from book one and throw our support behind them as they fight what seems like a losing battle.

Those who had trouble settling into Bumped due to the strange terminology and teenage slang so prevalent throughout will welcome the toned-down nature of Thumped, the use of sex-related witticisms and general sexual propaganda few and far between as the focus shifts to the characters themselves rather than the world. The one complaint to be had with this sequel is the seeming ease with which the main conflict gets resolved and the open-ended nature of the conclusion. We can appreciate the connection between the final pages of Thumped and the beginning pages of Bumped, the ending of Thumped presenting nothing but possibilities for each of the characters–a stark contrast to the rigid structure imprisoning them hundreds of pages prior–but at the same time we can’t help but want to know a bit more about the fallout resulting from actions taken in the last chapters as well as a few specifics as to what’s in store for their futures given no third book is on its way.

Rating: 3.5/5