Birthmarked
Birthmarkedby Caragh M. O'Brien
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. (goodreads.com)
This book blew me away. I finished it last night and yet I am still thinking about it and still going to pick it up to read only to remember that I FINISHED it. I just want to keep reading it, it was that addictive.It was also exceptionally creepy and fascinating and terrifying and bewildering all at the same time.A few random factoids related to the book (not the story necessarily): The local stores here never stocked it. My crappy library actually had it on the shelf but I didn't know if I felt like reading it during the summer and the next times I went to the library it was out. I didn't think I was going to be able to finish/read any of the remaining books on my 2010 Debut Author Challenge list because I couldn't GET them. A little Book Elf sent me some surprise books for Christmas this week and this was one of them and I started it right away. As I tend to have major anxiety issues with most dystopian type plots I started the book with caution but soon realized I was not going to be able to put it down for long.With those things out of the way you can see how, somehow, I was meant to read this book. Or at least the book has been haunting me from the start of the Debut Challenge. ;)If I were to be honest, I can't actually come up with any coherent thoughts to write down about the story. All I know is that it left me with this really strong feeling that I can't shake OR explain. This is what always happened in school, too, when I was to give reports on books that truly captivated me. I just can't get it out onto the page. The feeling is positive and warm and sort of linen-y, with blue and grey plaid colouring. I know that must sound odd but I do have mild synesthesia and that's sort of how it's expressing itself. And my description here isn't even that accurate.ANYHOW - I thought Gaia was a very true character. She was naive, yes, but she was loyal to the Enclave and was young enough to never truly question anything. There was one line in the book that I found described her very aptly ""You're turning out to be quite the interesting mix of ignorance and information." This was spoken to Gaia by her interrogator and I thought it was spot on. As you read you watch Gaia take what she always thought was true and work it out to see the flaws and start to ask the questions that others had been asking in secret. Her growth from innocent, follow-the rules girl to a strong woman who tries to do what's best to save the lives of children and her parents is just wonderful to watch.Gaia is not the same person at the end of the story that she was days before at the start of the story. Her world has been torn inside out and all she believed has unraveled but rather than let that destroy her it makes her stronger and more confident in her choices.The same thing happened to me with this book that happened to me with Prophecy of the Sisters - I thought this was a stand-alone novel, however there will be another book. I was quickly coming to that conclusion about 2/3 of the way through the book when I noticed how few pages were left and how much was building up. Suffice it to say - I will be getting that second book as soon as it hits the shelves (and if my stores still do not stock it I will max out my credit card to order it!)Thank you a million times over to the sneaky little Book Elf for this fantastic gift!Birthmarked trilogy