Birthmarked

Gaia has just delivered her first baby as a midwife and has advanced to to the Enclave.  The first three babies born every month to every midwife are advanced to a better life in the wealthy Enclave from outside the wall where Gaia lives.  But when her parents are arrested for an unknown crime against the Enclave, Gaia's perceptions of the world are challenged and she decides she must save them.

 

     She consumed the last bite of her bread.  His shoulders were broad, and she could smell the clean fabric of his black coat, as if sunshine still clung to him.
     Somehow that, too, confused and troubled her.  She wanted sunshine of her own.  p.198 ARC

I knew when I picked up this book I wasn't going to be able to put it down.  It captured my attention from the first line when we meet Gaia delivering her first baby and then taking it away from its mother to the Enclave for advancement.  Conceptually, this was a great book.  It had all the elements to make for a chilling dystopian novel.  And it worked on most levels.  Maybe because I just finished The Knife of Never Letting Go that features a truly brutal dystopian society or I compared it a bit to The Giver which features a chillingly horrific dystopian society with a shocking secret, but the big reveal of the dysfunction of Gaia's world didn't have quite the impact it was suppose to on me.


But it worked on all the other levels.  The action picks up quickly and then moves right along, only stalling in a few scenes.  The characters are very real in their words and actions.  Gaia was a good girl, but she was also abrasive due to the scar on her face.  I liked her but sometimes she needed to learn to hold her tongue.  Leon was an enigma and I couldn't decide what his game was, but he was a very interesting counter for Gaia.  It was a good book and I liked it enough to read the sequel when it comes out.

ARC from Traveling ARC Tours
Hogwarts: Charms
YA
Dystopian