Review: Flawed by Cecelia Ahern

Flawed
Author: Cecelia Ahern
Series: Flawed #1
Genre: YA, Dystopian
Release Date: March 24th 2016
Book Length: 400

Publisher: HarperCollins

The stunning YA debut from internationally bestselling author Cecelia Ahern.

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 in which 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 this stunning novel, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern depicts a society in which perfection is paramount and mistakes are punished. And where one young woman decides to take a stand that could cost her everything.

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Review

I was extremely excited to hear Cecelia was tackling YA, I felt for sure that it would be something I would immediately love…. I was not expecting it to be this dark dystopian with tricky politics, questionable world building and little idea of how this world came to be. However I loved the idea of a character rising above social standards and bringing a new meaning to words such as 'Perfect' and 'Flawed', however this book was not without it’s issues.

                       

            Celestine North is flawless – don’t roll your eyes just yet – she abides by the law, follows rules to a fault – not yet – obsessed with perfect grammar – no, not yet – leads the perfect life and has the perfect boyfriend – gah, eye roll, is perfect a word anymore? – And is your typical Mary Sue… in the beginning anyway.

Celestine’s boyfriend’s father is Judge Crevan, the head judge of a committee called the Guild. The Guild judge everyday citizens who have committed moral or ethical mistakes and if found guilty they are deemed ‘Flawed’. Criminals go to jail but being deemed Flawed is basically a judge of character but it comes with a heavy price. The Flawed are branded depending on the severity of their crime; you know the real bad stuff, like lying making mistakes, that sort of thing. The Flawed are publicity shamed and shunned from society and must live by a strict set of rules.

            What started off with various details on how perfect Celestine, her boyfriend, her family and her life is, soon takes a dark turn; Celestine finds herself on trail accused of being ‘Flawed’ for a small act of kindness. The punishment for Celestine was pretty horrific, before anything happened I had the distinct feeling that something bad was going to happen but I was convinced that some hero would save the day or a piece of evidence would somehow reveal itself just in the nick of time. This did not happen! I was shocked again and again by some scenes. Reader beware!

The romance between Celestine and her perfect boyfriend Art is fluffy at best. There does seem to be a possibility for a second romance but I wouldn’t call it a love triangle as such, as the character Carrick speaks only a handful of words through the entire book. Carrick was in the cell next to Celestine during her trail and although they weren’t able to speak to one another they seem to have this unspoken understanding of each other and were able to communicate without talking.

They only speak twice throughout the whole book which was disappointing as I felt that Carrick had an interesting backstory and I wanted to get to know him more, plus I think the hopeless romantic in me enjoyed the idea of building a friendship (or relationship depending on book 2) that’s built on more than just words – I suppose I don’t really have an opinion on this just yet because of the little page time between the two.

Flawed was an interesting start to a new and interesting dystopian series but I had serious issues with the pacing, I felt it was a little too fast but upon finishing the book I realized that hardly any time had passed. I don’t really like books that follow the MC day in and day out with too much information and inner monologue and too little dialogue. In the end Celestine was an interesting and brave character and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in Perfect (Book #2). I know it probably seems like I hated this but I didn’t, it had issues that I couldn’t overlook but I found my interest piquing in the latter half of the story and I can’t not read Perfect.