Book Review: Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien

Author: Caragh M. O'Brien
Released: March 30, 2010
Received: by the super generous Jessica at Shut Up! I'm Reading
IBSN: 9781596435698
Publisher: Roaring Book Press
Pages: 360
Summary:

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. Taken from Shelfari.

What I thought: At first I wasn't sure about Gaia, she seemed very naive about the world around her and she trusted completely in the Enclave, and she's not the only one who does. The servitude of the Wharfton citizens to the Enclave was a bit creepy, as was the plausible futuristic society. However, as the story unfolds Gaia becomes a much stronger character and she finds the courage to do things she never thought she would have to think about much less act on. By the end of the book I loved Gaia, she became such a worthy heroine.
Caragh M. O'Brien's writing is really great and this story was never dull. My attention was caught and I was anxious to learn all I could about Gaia and the tragic journey she must travel to save her parents from an unjust incarceration. With so many twists and turns and just a little romance you can't go wrong reading Birthmarked.