About Amy Hello, I'm Amy, an aspiring motorsports writer and former blogger. If you dig deeper enough, you find some very old blog posts, as this started as a book blog, but that's really where I got my start in writing: book reviews, hot book topics and as well as the odd personal essay. After leaving university, I left the book blog behind, but continued writing and going in the world of social media, writing film reviews and promoting queer cinema, but after a tragic event in my personal life, I quickly discovered Motorsports. What started as a love for Formula 1, while finally watching the Formula 1 film, Rush, and discovering Formula 1 TikTok, this love soon expanded to everything Formula E, IndyCar, Formula 2, Formula 3, as well as F1 Academy. I soon found the itch to write come back, with the fast-moving news of motorsport, to the drama, the competition, and the journey of drivers trying to find a race seat. I found that it was the people and storie...
* I am reviewing this book which I was gifted for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own. *
Title: Flawed
Author: Cecelia Ahern
Publisher: HarperCollins
Source: From Netgalley
(Bookshop UK| Hive| Goodreads | Storygraph)
Book Summary:
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.
Book Review:
My Mum has always been a massive fan of the author Cecelia Ahern, and when she released Flawed I was interested. I had also read Where The Rainbow Ends which I also enjoyed. Although I left it a lot longer to read, I did really like Flawed and it took me by surprise for some reason.
I have to admit that I didn't think I would like this one. I was excited about reading it but after I had a lengthy dystopian phase when I was 14, I have always been a bit picky about the future books that I read. Even though I was apprehensive I think this worked for the better as my expectations were lower so I got a lot more from the story.
One of the things that I enjoyed was world building. Even though I don't believe that anyone would ever put an F on someone, obviously casting people from society is a theme that is explored in the book and it is done well.
These stories normally go two ways, ever it is a regressed state or everything is better but I think it is very rare for these worlds to still have phones and mentions text messages. I thought this was an interesting choice and I actually liked its inclusion.
With the world building, I actually loved the writing for Flawed. There were two scenes in the book that made me feel so deeply uncomfortable that I was blown away by Cecelia Ahern's writing ability. One of these is a sexual assault scene so please consider this a trigger warning.
With the first person point of view, it made me feel for Celestine so much and I wanted to give her so much care. I also think that the characters are well fleshed out and seeing some of the reveals that happened were exciting.
Flawed is also really fast-paced and addictive read. I was racing towards the end and finished it mostly all in one day, which is a credit again to the writing.
I was really drawn to Celestine as a character as we read about her navigating the world of Flawed. The character development is really great and I think that all the side characters are really well developed too. Although one of the problems I had was with the love triangle as I am not a massive fan of those.
Flawed does leave on a bit of a cliffhanger and as it is a duology, I hope I can get to the next book soon as I do want to know what happens.
The Verdict:
Flawed is a good addition to the dystopia genre which will have you racing to the end to find out what happens.
Have you read Flawed? Do you want to? Let me know in the comments.
Comments
The two (of 4 in total) gay characters seemed like a tick-box exercise for me; I now fully expect for there to be a non-binary person in the sequel lol.
All that said, it was a very emotional and powerful read. I haven't read a book that fast for years! *didn't realise it was for young adults but there were moments I was reminded about Noughts and Crosses.
The parallels with present day racism, prejudice, politics, social-distancing and limitations on peoples lives and livelihoods cannot be ignored. I liken it to (although shorter and I hope I am wrong) a modern day Orwell's 1984 ie a reference book for the future. I give it 10/10 for holding my fickle attention span though.