Birthmarked and Prized by Caragh M. O'Brien

Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien is another dystopian young adult novel that I read recently in an attempt to keep myself awake at night. It worked.

Gaia Stone, a sixteen year old midwife, lives outside the Enclave wall. She is required to give a certain number of delivered babies to the guards at the gate each month. She's never questioned this requirement (or any others for that matter) until now. The government, the very leaders she has always served, imprison her parents, forcing her to rethink everything she has always known.

A brave heroine, Gaia is willing to risk her life to save her parents. In the process, she discovers the secrets of the Enclave. In her fight against the institution, she finds personal strength and romance with a handsome member of the Enclave.

Birthmarked left me hungering for the sequel, which I downloaded to my Kindle immediately. Unfortunately, Prized, while very entertaining, brought up an issue that I wish had been left alone...Abortion. The book could have easily been written without bringing this into it. 

In Prized, Gaia strikes out into the wilderness with her newborn sister in search of a group of rebels. What she finds is a fascinating matriarchal colony in the middle of nowhere. In this colony ten boys are born to every girl, so women are highly prized. Men aren't even allowed to vote...or talk to women or touch them without invitation.

However, due to some unknown cause, everyone who tries to leave the colony gets sick and dies. All Gaia really wants is to keep her sister safe.

Like I said, this book was entertaining. I would have endorsed it (and Birthmarked) whole-heartedly if it had not been for the topic of abortion. 

A minor character in the book who is unmarried asks Gaia to make her miscarry a baby. Gaia wrestles with the idea because of her love of babies and instinct to protect them, but she chooses to help with the miscarriage, deciding that the mother's choice is the most important thing.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

In an attempt to stay awake while nursing in the middle of the night, I've been reading some YA dystopia. Divergent by Veronica Roth is one of them. My intention for these books is that I will only read them while nursing in the night and not during the day....that doesn't work out so well. I mean, the whole point is that the book is enough of a page-turner that I won't put it down and fall asleep. It's hard not to pick them up while nursing during the day.

Anyway, enough rambling. Divergent is an entertaining book. It has a bit more grit to it than some of my favorites, but still, it was a page-turner. 

The Amazon blurb about it says this: 

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the YA scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

Divergent has a fair amount of violence, as many of the dystopian books do. I don't think there was any swearing or sexuality, but I was mostly reading it at 3 am.  :) The main characters get tattoos as part of their initiation into their faction, as well.

I'd probably give this book three out of five stars.