Flawed was a YA debut for Cecelia Ahern and she did not disappoint. I had heard of Cecelia prior to reading any of her work however at the time I was not too interested in what she had written. This all changed when I heard that she had written her first Young Adult novel, my preferred genre.
The Flawed series is set in a dystopian world where the punishment for crime and any act deemed unethical is carried out by branding. These crimes can vary anywhere from making a bad business decision to murder, all flawed are treated the same no matter what their crime. A literal ‘F’ for flawed is permanently branded onto your skin if you are found by the policing force ‘The Guild’ to have committed a crime.
Celestine, a seventeen-year-old who always follows the rules, gets good grades and is even dating the son of Judge Crevan (top tier member of The Guild), is perfect. Although this may all come crashing down when she makes a life-changing decision one day on a bus.
I read the first book at the start of the year and can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, but this enjoyment did not come completely easy. I started reading this at a very busy time in my life so I was only reading about one chapter at a time and because of this, it took me forever to get really into the story. Once I got past this it was quite a quick read.
I found the justice system in this series extremely interesting as it was something that I have never seen before. The idea of being banished from society for doing something as little as making a bad decision is quite terrifying. This is definitely a book world I do not want to live in.
I am deciding not to go into too much detail on the second book just in case someone has not read either yet and does not want to know too much detail before picking them up. So here is the spoiler-free Good Reads synopsis:
“Celestine North is Flawed.
Ever since Judge Crevan declared her the number one threat to the public, she has been a ghost, on the run with Carrick, the only person she can trust.
But Celestine has a secret—one that could bring the entire Flawed system crumbling to the ground. A secret that has already caused countless people to go missing.
Judge Crevan is gaining the upper hand, and time is running out for Celestine. With tensions building, Celestine must make a choice: save just herself or risk her life to save all Flawed people.”
The second book is definitely a quicker read and moves at a much faster rate. This is not something I would say was a huge problem with Flawed as it featured a lot of world-building and made sure you properly understood how society is run. Perfect is action-packed, but still has moments of heart-wrenching emotion.
If you love Cecelia’s other work and find yourself picking this up looking for her usual boatloads of romance, basically just don’t. This is very unlike her other work and does not feature a lot of romance, and when there are glimpses of romance they are very fluffy.
Overall the Flawed series is an action-packed, moderately quick read which can be enjoyed by most no matter what age you are.