Flawed: A Novel

Flawed is set in a society where perfection rules, any anything outside of being perfect is unacceptable. The main character, Celestine, is a straight-A student who is dating a powerful Judge's son, and is an all around rule following good-girl. That is, until she breaks a society rule in an act of compassion. This results in her arrest and subsequent trial. The trial will determine what her punishment will be, and most of all, will determine if she is found to be Flawed. Being Flawed means your skin is branded, you wear an armband that marks you as Flawed (think Scarlett Letter), and you follow a different set of rules. No luxuries, bland food, curfews, and ultimately being shunned form society. As the trial results are announced, Celestine finds there are a large number of people who support her choice and are ready to make their own play at overthrowing the government. Flawed follows Celestine as she works to find out who she can trust, and what actions she needs to take next. I really enjoyed this book! I'm a big fan of books set in dystopian societies, and while this one wasn't overtly dystopian, it still fits the bill. I liked watching the characters progress through the book in terms of beliefs - in the beginning of the book, so much of what they believe was black and white, and by the end there are definitely shades of grey. The book ends on a cliffhanger (noooooo!) so I'm really excited for it's sequel, Perfect, which comes out in April 2017. I can't wait to read it! I will say, that if you read To All the Boys I've loved Before by Jenny Han and didn't care for Lara Jean, you will likely not like Celestine. She's much in the same vain in regards to being incredibly eager to be perfect and follow the rules, without stepping a toe out of line. They remind me a lot of each other, so if you don't like one, you probably won't like the other. For me, it wasn't a problem, I liked both characters, even though there were definitely a few times I wanted to slap Celestine for being so naive and innocent. I don't remember being that naive in High School, but who knows! Maybe I was! Anyway, I definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys young adult dystopian novels, and I will absolutely be reading Perfect when it comes out next year!

Totally not what I expected. Set in a dystopian society were following the rules and social norms strictly enforced and perfection is the goal, Celestine North is the model citizen: beautiful, straight-A student who is logical and is the girlfriend of the son of the most powerful judge in the country. Normally the rule-follower, she is shaken and confused by the recent rulings of the court. The first is her neighbor who took her dying mother outside the country to be euthanized, following her dying mother's wish to end her pain and suffering. Her neighbor is branded and declared "Flawed" since she stole a life even though she did not break any laws inside the country. The second is a famous sports player who cheated on his wife but is found not guilty or not "Flawed" even though there is plenty of evidence that he did commit the crime. The fact that the judge in the case owns a significant part of the sports league that this famous player is a part of and being declared "Flawed" would prevent him from traveling internationally with the team and severely restrict his life has the public and Celestine questioning the fairnesss of this "Flawless" court. When Celestine speaks up and tries to save a Flawed man life on a bus, she is arrested for aiding a Flawed and is put on public trial. Celestine's life will be forever changed no matter what the outcome but can she live with herself if she lies and tries to save herself from the fate of being "Flawed"? I could have read this book in 1 day if I could have kept my eyes open last night to finish it. It was deeply moving to me and showed me what bullying is like when taken to the extreme in a society, to the point where some people in society are seen a less-than-human and have their rights taken away and their lives severely restricted over lapse of judgment or thought different from the accepted norm. I felt the anger and the frustration of the Flawed and those who questioned the morality of the society but were afraid to speak up in fear of being declared "Flawed." A great dystopian novel that O would highly recommend to all especially young adults and dystopian readers. I gave this a 4 out of 5 on Goodreads.

読みだしたら、止まりませんでした。 読みやすくもあり、ストーリーがスリリングでもあり、 そして、大きなメッセージが込められた作品でもあります。 「間違いをおかしてこそ、失敗してこそ、人は学び成長する！」というメッセージ。 そして、勇気とは何か、強さとは何かも考えさせられます。 17歳の少女の葛藤と成長が、痛々しいほどリアルに描かれています。 けっして、主人公を全面的に美化して描いていないところが、この本のもうひとつの魅力でもあり、 読者は共感しながら、この少女と同じ目線で試練に立ち向かっていく感覚を持てます。 星を５つでなく４つにしたのは、後半で少々もたついた所があったからです。それと、重要な登場人物が後から後から出てくるのはちょっとズルいんじゃないの？と思ってしまいました。

The book was delivered within three days, as usual the book was absolutely in perfect condition. Thanks to amazon for their great discount. I finished reading this book within one and a half days. 'FLAWED' is CECELIA AHERN'S young-adult debut novel. This book has sequel named 'PERFECT' that will be out MARCH,2017. About the book - This book is about Celestine North. She lives a perfect life with her sister Juniper, brother Ewan and her parents. She is loved by all her friends and teachers. She is a brilliant student having interest in mathematics. She is also dating the very charming Art Crevan. Celestine lives in such a country where there is a government run institute called THE GUILD. THE GUILD has made some rules that makes the society and country more perfect. The persons who does not follow these rules or show disloyalty to them will be marked as a FLAWED one with branding marks on specific part of their body, that ruins their future forever. These flawed persons are not even criminals but the punishment they get is worse. It is even against the rule to aid a FLAWED. On the way to her school, Celestine watches an old man getting on the bus whom she thought to be her grand father by mistake. There were two other non-flawed ladies who were already sitting in the flawed seats assigned for a flawed person. The old man starts coughing and gradually he starts losing control of his body as he coughs to death. But nobody comes to his help only because he is Flawed and helping him is against the rule. Unable to see this inhuman situation, Celestine could not control herself. She gets up and asks the two ladies to move to other empty non flawed seats and make the old man sit in his flawed sit. but those two old woman did not agree to move. They were so arrogant they did not even care that the old man was almost fainting there. So, Celestine stopped the bus and was helping the old man to sit in a non-flawed seat but the old man tried his best not to sit there as it was against the rule. Suddenly the whistleblowers arrived took Celestine away into the Highland Castle where she met Carrick a FAB(flawed at birth). Then after the judgement she was marked flawed 6 times(which qas not in the law). A person can be flawed maximum at 5 places of the body. Judge Crevan(Art's father) came to the branding chamber expecting Celestine to repent but she didn't so he out of his rage and greed of power branded her spine. Since that day Celestine's life changed. She became a hero, riots started everywhere. Now the question is whether she will win over this inhuman GUILD. My thoughts: This book seemed so real to me that I felt the rage and anger of Celestine. I loved the character of Celestine, Carrick, Juniper and her granddad. Is it a sin to show compassion, love, kindness to a person ? Why should we discriminate a person based on his/her flaws. We are human, social beings and we should help each other in their needs. The story was like an allegory to our society of the present day. When Celestine was flawed, she felt like she was all alone,it was hard for her to trust anyone. Everytime she felt like scapegoat setting up for another trap to make her fall in more danger. But at last she will learn that her granddad is there for her. Like that few other people like Carrick,her math tutor, Pia the reporter will help her to survive the situation. There were people who believed in her, considered her as the face of change. Person like Crevan exits to rotten the society. Crevan is so full of power and greedy of becoming more powerful that it made him insane. The people who are there to make the society flawless are themselves flawed. So, I think this story sends a message to every reader to be helpful not to discriminate and look down upon people. Our humanity is something that makes us different from other creatures. Carrick was flawed because he was looking for his flawed parents after he reached 18 years. The Guild was unable to brainwash him like they do to every FAB. It was found out that these rules of The Guild were rather stupid and they were creating division in the society. They were taking away the basic human rights. These rules made no sense, no logic. How do a parent will feel when his/her child will be taken away from him/her only because of a F mark on the body? Is it anyhow justified? This story is not merely like anyother young-adult love story rather this story has depth. The whole plot has a suspense especially when Celestine was set up for a party but instead was humiliated by some of her school friends. I really loved reading this story and learned so many things. Last time I read an Ahern book, I cried and this time I was burning with rage when Celestine was tortured for helping a man who needed help. On the other hand the story was written so simply it was a pleasure reading this book. At the end of this book, the author left the readers in anticipation for the next book as Celestine left her home and went to find Carrick and escape from Judge Crevan. Now that Celestine has so much support and followers will she win this battle against Crevan ?

What started out as an uncomfortable read very quickly became a book i couldn't put down. If you like a book that asks questions, that challenges your comfort zone then read this. Go sit somewhere quiet so you are not disturbed and give this book your whole attention. Trust me, it's worth it!!

I've read most of cecelia aherns adult books and was looking forward to this until I realised it was a teen book. Not knowing what to expect I started reading it at 11.30pm and read through to about 5 in the morning it was unputdownable. I haven't been wowed by a book like this for a long time. The plot is fast and after the first few pages where I was a bit confused I got right into this. The treatment of the protagonist as a flawed character made me very emotional and it's a book you can relate to in so many situations that are happening or happened around the world where people are being persecuted for their religion or ethnicity. The betrayal of people closest to her made me gasp "no!" as I read on thinking can this get any worse? I think there are some gaps in the plot which I'm not commenting on as I'm hoping they will be covered in the next book. (Mainly what will happen to the other characters and will her relationship issues with siblings (both of which I disliked) and the girl across road and best friend be resolved. A lot of the characters in the book (this is my only complaint about the book) seemed a little 2d to me... they were there simply because the storyline required them to be, like the supposed love of her life, he was virtually not there because of being on the run but surely he could have passed messages along etc. so I would hope they would come a little more to life as the book goes on. This being said this book is a great way to spend 5 or 6 hours being enthralled by this new world.

This book reminded me a lot of Hunger Games: female heroine that doesn't want to be the hero; the public whose values have been twisted; a counter movement rising against them. Despite the similarities it is a different story, so not boring in reading. On the contrary, it is very thrilling and I could barely put it down. The concept of the Flawed seems more likely to happen in real life than the hunger games and that disturbed me a lot in the beginning, making me think about society and myself. Anyways, can't wait for Perfect to be published!