Review: Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien

     

Title: Birthmarked
Author: Caragh O'Brien
Series: Birthmarked #1

Pages: 361

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Release Date: May 2nd 2011 (UK)

Source: For review

Rating: 4 stars

After climate change, on the north shore of Unlake Superior, a dystopian world is divided between those who live inside the wall, and those, like sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone, who live outside. It’s Gaia’s job to “advance” a quota of infants from poverty into the walled Enclave, until the night one agonized mother objects, and Gaia’s parents are arrested.

Badly scarred since childhood, Gaia is a strong, resourceful loner who begins to question her society. As Gaia’s efforts to save her parents take her within the wall, she herself is arrested and imprisoned.

Fraught with difficult moral choices and rich with intricate layers of codes, BIRTHMARKED explores a colorful, cruel, eerily familiar world where one girl can make all the difference, and a real hero makes her own moral code.

I really enjoyed Birthmarked. It had everything needed to make a fabulous dystopian. The setting. The oppressors. The strong heroine.

Gaia was a wonderful protagonist. She was brave and strong. Her determination and love for her family were endearing qualities that made me respect and admire her. She did, though, have faults. She felt that serving the Enclave was the most important thing and in the beginning, did not question this.

The book is full of secrets that are slowly revealed throughout the novel. A lot is learnt and there are definitely a lot of surprises. The book itself is also beautifully written; however whilst I enjoyed reading it whenever I put it down it took an immense amount of effort to start again. I couldn’t tell you why as I loved it whilst I read it.

Birthmarked was an enjoyable read and I am excited to start Prized, the second in the series.