Image stolen from Amazon. Obviously. From whom you should order this book right now at this location
Just look at that title. Does that NOT look like "Bitchmarked" to you? I mean really. I don't even call it Birthmarked anymore. It is so obviously Bitchmarked.
Anyway, this book was awesome.
Why was it awesome?
Well...
I didn't hate the main character. This is good. She had a sort of Not Too Much Of A Martyr-ness to her that didn't piss me off too much.
The romance? The romance! It was perfect! It was the total, like, "I hate you. But hey, maybe I'll be a human being for a couple minutes. Oh, whoa, you're hot when you're not bitching at me. Okay, I'll help you for like five minutes, but I won't enjoy it. Okay, maybe I might. A little bit... OMGILOVEYOU. OH S*** THERE ARE DUDES WITH GUNS CHASING US. BACK TO REALITY.
I really liked the setting. It takes place in the area that once was the Great Lakes region, but after a fuel-related apocalypse combined with climate change, all the water dried up. The culture is kind of old-west-y, which is cool. Also, they wear cloaks. Cloaks are one of those things that nobody actually wears, but they must be present for a book to be cool. Or something.
In case you're really confused, Bitchmarked is about a girl named Gaia who lives not in but outside a Really Cool Post-apocalyptic Enclave (Once again, you're not cool unless you have either a clave or an enclave. What's the difference, by the way?). She's not quite cool enough to live IN the enclave, of course, she's too badass. The way it works is that you either live in it our outside of it. Instead of hospitals they have midwives, so every birth is assisted by one or two women, usually particular to the area. The midwives have an obligation to "advance" a certain number of babies every month to be adopted into the Enclave, who have a little problem with inbreeding, due to the fact that they live inside a wall.
Note to future post-apocalyptic societies: avoid living inside a wall as long as it is possible to live outside a wall. I mean, REALLY.
Anyway, Gaia's mom is the midwife, and Gaia kind of has this little "apprentice" thing going on. Gaia has a scar on her face, by the way, which makes people think she's a freak. Anyway, her parents get arrested, and she has to take over as midwife, taking people's children and advancing them and all that stuff. And then stuff happens and it gets really awesome. I'm going to try and avoid spoilers on this one, especially since it's better if you don't know them. Even the romance isn't totally obvious from the beginning, unless of course you're me and you know how it's going to end from the first page. I read too much. I haven't been surprised by a book in years.
Except maybe Goliath, but kind of not even.
So, as for the plot: awesome. I've been wanting something with that sort of Awesometype (New word. This is the kind of "vibe" the book sends, the energy of it. I'm cool, right?) for a while now. I'm making Mrs. McCauley read it, so we can discuss it on our Book Show Thing.
OH AND OMGGUESSWHAT? No Love Triangle of Doom. Yup. SOMEONE WITH SOME LEVEL OF ORIGINALITY YAY.
AND THERE'S A SEQUEL. I'm getting a Kindle Fire soon, so I can be even more of a book nerd, so that might be my first ebook.
WWMMRHRN:
-Sushi?
-Booksbooksbooks
-no homework, pleaseee
-Foood
Next Book: WGWG? This Dark Endeavor? The Last Hero? The world may never know.
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