THE BIRTHMARKED TRILOGY

Caragh M. O'Brien

A young adult fantasy Trilogy. The dystopian, post-climate change world is divided between those who live inside the wall, and those, like the main character, who lives outside.

Birthmarked

“Following in her mother's footsteps Gaia has become a midwife, delivering babies in the world outside the wall and handing a quota over to be "advanced" into the privileged society of the Enclave. Gaia has always believed this is her duty, until the night her mother and father are arrested by the very people they so loyally serve. Now Gaia is forced to question everything she has been taught, but her choice is simple: enter the world of the Enclave to rescue her parents, or die trying.” -Goodreads
I really liked the theory of the book, I enjoyed how it was set up and how the earth had changed so drastically. I could feel the deep oppression of the people living outside 'The Wall', but I could also really tell they had a very strong sense of community with each other.
I didn't like the lack of action on the potential for dramatic fight scenes. The author did a good job of setting up scenes for a gruesome violence, but then the main character wouldn't take that opportunity. I was also very against the main plot point of giving children away to an unknown ruler, but I will agree it made a captivating story problem for the character.
I would recommend this book to any one who enjoyed the Divergent or Hunger Games series, but if you have a taste for gore or at least intense violence, then this maybe isn't for you.

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Prized

Prized starts up where Brithmarked left off, as most sequels do. Gaia leaves her town of Warfton with her baby sister and escapes in to the wasteland. A place not many people survive, she is rescued by a man on a horse and taken to a mysterious place. This new place is called Sylum, like Asylum…. A dystopian society that is ruled by women being in short supply and men who vastly outnumber them. Gaia is forced to submit to a very strict code of conduct that is imposed by the matriarch Olivia. Some of these codes include that all women must have children. If they refuse they will be cast out of the village and not be allowed to marry. If you are widowed you must remarry and continue to have children in hopes of having a girl. Others like she must be accompanied places to ensure that there are no rule breaking, and most controversial of all – abortions are strictly illegal, a law Gaia does not follow, helping at least two girls have abortions to save their honor.

I liked that in the sequel Gaia finally got some courage! She also shows how resourceful she can be, and provides a needed service to the new town she finds.

There were many things I didn't like about this book as well. At this point, I was trying to finish the series because I had to see if it got better. The plot became very predictable and made this book less captivating.

I didn't hate it as much as the first, but there were still things I would change.

Promised

After defying the ruthless enclave, living through the wasteland, and now over throwing the matriarchy in Sylum, Gaia takes her role as the new matriarch of Sylum seriously, and she needs to figure out how to keep everyone alive. This includes replenishing the population. After finding out that Sylum sits in an abandoned fish farm, Gaia learned that the ground was soaked with the chemicals that helped cultivate all male fish for harvest, which is now affecting the human population and disallowing female babies to be born. Gaia decides that the safest place to be is back in the enclave, where there are plenty of women for each male in her new clan, Gaia devises a plan to diplomatically approach the enclave and propose the merge between the two civilizations. When Gaia reaches the enclave, to her horror she discovers that in her absence, young girls have been kidnapped to serve in a birthing factory, where the most choice of the babies are kept in the enclave.
The journey Gaia has ventured has shown her what she believes strongly in, and that she has to fight to keep her values alive.
I really liked the fat the Gaia was getting her shit together finally!
There were actual times where I shouted audibly in my car in appreciation for Gaia's progress and final use of her brain.
I really didn’t like how creepy this got. Granted this is a lighter tale than others, but dissecting it deeper, fully grown adults made the decision to kidnap and impregnate young women against their will, not caring if it hurt them, only caring about the outcome – if that outcome had the right genes.