Cecelia Ahern’s foray into the young adult dystopian genre with Flawed is an interesting twist on the classic The Scarlet Letter — in a not-so-distant, perfect world, any deviance from perfection gets its citizens branded. Living in this world is Celestine North, a model student and daughter, beautiful and bright, and one who believes in the system implicitly.

A great recession has caused the economy and government to collapse, resulting in social chaos. As people search for scapegoats, they place the blame on the “morally flawed” who should have had the foresight to see the imminent downfall coming and prevent it. Errors in judgement become unforgivable and those deemed guilty are named and shamed. As a society barely surviving annihilation, they are no longer inclined to give second chances. Perfection, however, cannot be bred and a Guild is created — Crevan’s Guild — to brand those who are found to be “flawed”. Headed by Judge Crevan, the Guild and its chief executive are the moral authority of the country. They determine what is acceptable behaviour and what constitutes deviation in any way. The rules, of course, are vague as people can be branded for bad decisions, lying, stealing from society, disloyalty to the Guild and for stepping out of line.

Initially, the Guild and the judge are both portrayed as inherently harmless. They are seen through the eyes of the protagonist who is, in her own words, “a girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white”. Celestine is perfect and knows the judge as Bosco, her boyfriend’s father. Comfortable with him, secure in her place in the world, on track to win the Fields Medal — the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics — she has no reason to be touched by the Flawed or to think of the ramifications of such a system.


A dystopian society meshes the future with the past as historical injustices are revisited in new forms


Ostensibly simplistic, the novel weaves together a range of complex ideas — those of ostracism, reactionary politics, fear-mongering for power, corruption and the possible co-opting of various elements of the state to further individual ends. The Flawed are to be named and shamed, so from an armband with a red “F” (reminiscent of Nazi Germany) to separate seats on buses (à la segregation policies); they are forced to live in society (even their passports are taken away) but not be a part of it. The judgements are suspect, especially as more and more Crevans gain power and positions of authority.

Ostensibly simple, Celestine’s character also evolves. At the start of the book she is one-dimensional, seeming to lack depth, but her life changes dramatically as she faces an unexceptional situation where she follows her instincts, not the rules. In a world of no second chances, even the perfect can be branded.

In a catalytic moment, Celestine makes a choice to help one of the Flawed. To her, the choice is an obvious one, but in her world helping one of the Flawed results in imprisonment. At the same time, she is Art Crevan’s girlfriend and his father is willing to help her obfuscate her story to keep his son happy. The cast of the story, however, includes political rivals of the judge, the Flawed, the proponents of segregation and the media.

Her trial becomes a watershed where Judge Crevan uses his influence in the media to portray an image of Celestine as “a pretty 17-year-old girl from a good part of town, no serious problems, girlfriend of the son of Judge Crevan”. She becomes the poster girl for the anti-Guild elements who try to use her as a pawn to show that the Flawed Court is unjust. Told to spin the truth so that her actions are not seen as aiding the Flawed, Celestine enters the trial with the plan to lie.

At the trial, the substance of Celestine’s character begins to emerge. Her black and white views of life morph into greys as she wrestles with the idea that “[t]o not be deemed Flawed, I must betray the old man on the bus. To be true to myself, I will be deemed Flawed.” As she takes the stand at the trial Celestine is asked what possessed her — what possessed her to help an old man, to aid an emphysema patient while he choked — and her answer is “compassion and logic”, two virtues in short supply in the dystopian future.


“I am definitely in shock. I must be. I cannot fathom how I can be here, me who doesn’t do anything wrong, who is a people-pleaser, whose every report card is filled with perfect As, whose boyfriend’s dad is the head judge of the Guild. I go through my actions on the bus again, over and over in my head. I go through it so much it starts to blur, like an overplayed song. I think about what I did, what I should have done, what I could have done better. I become confused as to what actually happened. I watch it happen over and over in my head; it’s like staring at somebody’s face until that person eventually starts to look different. I sit on the bed, my back against the only solid wall of my cell, and push my head to my knees, hugging my legs. I don’t know how long I sit like this — it could be minutes; it could be hours — but my heart flits from calm to panic as I reason with myself. I can’t be Flawed. I can’t be Flawed. I am perfect.” Excerpt from the book


As compassion and logic become the rallying cries for an alternative political party, Celestine is brutalised by the Judge, victimised by society and confronted by all the flaws of the system keeping the Flawed apart. Minor characters in the book serve as foils for Celestine — her sister, her boyfriend, the journalist assigned the job of demonising her. Other, less developed characters have basic motives and behaviour and they rarely seem to be flesh and blood, although they, too, have their moments.

In the beginning, Celestine’s mother, a famous model, “is uncomfortable when anything is less than perfect; a crooked tooth, a double chin, an oversized nose — it all makes her question people, distrust them. She’s not alone. Most people feel exactly as she does.” After the trial, the tagline she has spoken for a decade — “flawless on the outside; flawless on the inside” — no longer means anything to her. Unable to protest the treatment meted out to her daughter, she changes her signature look to a conflicted, uncoordinated mess so that others will rush to commit similar fashion faux pas. Another minute reference to the herd mentality that allows the majority to follow a senseless path of mistreating a minority.

A thought-provoking story in its historical allusions to some of the darker times of human civilisation, Flawed is also chilling in that the future described is not unimaginable. Discrimination, authoritarian governments, the interplay of politics and manipulation, and questions of identity are issues that young adults in the 21st century grapple with — directly or through the media — on a daily basis.

Flawed also reminds one of The Hunger Games in which a reluctant, young, female protagonist becomes responsible for the downfall of an oppressive, irrational regime. The book is a quick read and transitions between significant events are smooth; the reader is able to understand the gamut of emotions that Celestine experiences. The cliffhanger ending adds to a feeling the reader gets that the storyline would have been better suited to a film than a book; that said, I look forward to reading the sequel of Flawed, and that in itself is a recommendation.

The reviewer is a development consultant, freelance journalist and a director at the School of International Law, Islamabad.

Flawed
(NOVEL)
By Cecelia Ahern
HarperCollins, UK
ISBN: 978-0008126360
402pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 4th, 2016

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