Birthmarked by Caragh M. O’Brien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Call me biased but Caragh created an exceptional story. Gaia lives in a midwestern world reworked by climate change and dystopian society in which the leading class suffers genetic implications of a confined population. Alongside Gaia, we find ourselves better understanding a system of “adopting” babies from outside into the Enclave – often against the birth parents’ wishes. An increasing baby quota looms on the horizon as we open the book to Gaia, a young midwife apprentice, delivering her first baby unassisted. Her parents are arrested that same night.
Gaia sneaks inside the wall when she learns that her parents face imminent danger (mini-spoiler? execution)? She is met by a course of events and plot turns that lead her deeper into the compelling world created by O’Brien in this trilogy.
Caragh, next, my confession — or Mrs. O’Brien, as I came to know her when she taught my high school creative writing class —
I’m on the precipice of delivering my second child into the world. Birthmarked called to me from the bookshelf. I’ve had it with me since the book release party, and again a copy – the editions with new cover art – of the whole trilogy since you completed it. I toe-dipped long ago, but I don’t know why it took me so long to finally dive and immerse. Especially since you read SO MUCH of my teenage writing!!! And all that penpalship!!! which I still hope to resume. That said, I’m glad about the timing and that it called to me now. I feel the lost children all the more deeply, and Gaia is so near to my heart and moment. What will the next chapter contain for all your beautiful characters?
An incredibly well-crafted story with writing like beautiful stitching. The book sagged a little for me somewhere around and slightly before Leon’s encounter with the Proctectorate and Mabrother Iris, though I can’t quite pinpoint why… these important and powerful characters somehow felt stale and distant to me, unlikely even. The writing remained strong and by the time I hit the tunnels with Leon and baby Maya, I felt free to fully love things again. I did, however, have a quiet misgiving about the nursery scene – something about the ease and tenor of that mission, the sheltered take on Leon’s violence – important though it was to the people of Wharfton, and no doubt the subsequent installments of Gaia’s story. I changed my clothes with her, lost my galliant partner, found refuge with Emily and rediscovered myself in the records of lost parents. Now it is time to follow the first star of the night and greet what comes next. I smell adventure.
Thank you.