Book Review: Birthmarked

Late in the summer, a friend recommended the Birthmarked trilogy for me to read. So far, I have read two of them, and the third comes out TOMORROW! I am very excited about that, so I decided to review the first book in the series by Caragh M. O'Brien this evening.

Birthmarked is yet another novel set in a dystopian future (are you surprised?), yet it has many differences from the others that are popular right now. 16 year old Gaia Stone is a midwife in her community outside the wall of the Enclave. It is Gaia's duty (as well as her mother's) to advance a certain quota of babies born each month into the Enclave so that more suitable parents may raise them and they will have a better life. 

Gaia's family, never ones to cause problems and always ones to agree with everything the Enclave demands, is arrested while Gaia is not home, so when she returns, she has to inquire from a family friend about what happened to her parents. Gaia, determined to get her parents out alive, heads into the Enclave to rescue them, and that is where the fun begins. She sees things she does not want to, and she becomes a pawn in the life going on inside the Enclave. 

Gaia befriends one of the guards from the Enclave, and together, they must escape to save themselves when they don't think anyone else can be saved. This book earns 5/5 stars from me, though that is not surprising considering the topic. Gaia is a strong female character, and she challenges the beliefs of others. I highly recommend this book, and I will review the second one, Prized, soon.