Synopsis: In the Enclave, your scars set you apart, and the newly born will change the future.
Sixteen-year-old Gaia Stone and her mother faithfully deliver their quota of three infants every month. But when Gaia’s mother is brutally taken away by the very people she serves, Gaia must question whether the Enclave deserves such loyalty. A stunning adventure brought to life by a memorable heroine, this dystopian debut will have readers racing all the way to the dramatic finish. -Goodreads

Review: Birthmarked was a really interesting dystopian YA read. Due to some extreme climate changes, there is are very few people left and very little rain. Okay, that isn’t so unusual in dystopian today, but the society that has been built around these extreme circumstances is complex and certainly misguided. Yet it’s easy enough to understand that these people are just trying to do the best they can to survive. Really interesting to read.

The one draw back to this book for me was a lack of fully developed characters. The main character Gaia is of course the exception. She has a complete history that has obviously shaped who she is and the decisions she makes in the story, but I just didn’t find that the people she was interacting with had that same, realistic feeling 100% of the time. Not that they were awful or two dimensional, just not as fleshed out as they could have been. Granted, most of the people that populate the book are as new to Gaia as they are to the reader so this will likely develop in future books.

The romance in Birthmarked was really nicely done. The relationship developed so much more naturally than you usually see in YA novels and it was a fantastic change of pace.

I’m a little nervous to see where this series goes next because from what I can tell, book two takes place in a whole new environment with new characters.  But Caragh M. O’Brien has more than proven to me that she is a top-notch writer and world builder and I really enjoyed this story.

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