Megan Mcafferty, the author of the Jessica Darling series of books, has here crafted a smart and insightful piece of YA chick-lit. However, while the intended audience is clearly tween and teen girls, this book should be read by boys and young men as well. The story is set in a near-future dystopia, where a worldwide virus has rendered most humans incapable of bearing children after the age of eighteen. The story's main characters, twins separated at birth by the names of Melody and Harmony, grow up in very different communities in the United States - one in a closed religious order akin to the Amish or Hutterites, the other in a hyper-secularlized and commercialized open community.
