Book Thoughts: Birthmarked

Title: Birthmarked
Author: Caragh M. O'Brien
Series: Birthmarked #1

Birthmarked took me a while to get into it and at first I was afraid I wasn't going to like it. I really wanted to like it, because it came really highly recommended by some of my best friends, but it was just really slow getting started. Of course, that might have been because it took me ages to read any of it thanks to school, but it just felt painfully slow.

Fortunately, it got better. Much better. By the time I got to the end, I was completely ignoring everything around me so that I could keep turning pages. I wanted to know what happened. The characters were only part of it - I liked Gaia, but she was kind of slow sometimes; my favorite was definitely Leon - and the plot was well-crafted but it's hard to get a whole lot of variation in dystopian fiction; it's always someone fighting the system. I think what made this book for me was the world that Caragh O'Brien created.

Those who live inside the wall are privileged and have everything they need. Those who are born outside the wall, are born healthy, and are one of the midwife's first three babies of the month can be advanced - taken inside the wall, to be adopted and raised as an Enclave child. Those like Gaia, who are scarred or imperfect or simply unlucky, live outside the wall - a much harder, less privileged life. Gaia is training to be a midwife like her mother, and has learned all of her mother's traditions and practices. So when her parents get arrested, Gaia is asked to unravel the coded birth record that her mother left behind.

I really loved the set-up with the code (which I solved before Gaia did! At least partially...I was excited) and the DNA testing and everything. Birthmarked was not my favorite book ever or anything, but I definitely enjoyed it once I got into it. I was afraid there wasn't going to be a sequel, because the ending could go either way (I don't think that's too spoilery), but fortunately the author's website says that it's going to be a trilogy. I'll certainly be looking for book two once it comes out!

Book Thoughts: The Maze Runner

Title: The Maze Runner
Author: James Dashner
Series: Maze Runner #1

When Thomas wakes up in the lift and finds himself in a strange place called the Glade, he has no idea what to expect, mostly because he knows nothing about himself - not his name, not who his parents are, not his birthday, nothing. The other boys quickly inform him that one new boy arrives every thirty days, that he will have to work but should be safe, and that he must never, ever enter the Maze. There's one problem with that: Thomas feels drawn to the Maze, and knows right away that he is meant to be a Runner - one of the Gladers who enter the Maze every day, trying to map it out and find some sort of pattern, some sort of escape.

It took me a while to get into this book, although part of that was probably because I have had so much going on with school and college applications and my thesis project that I haven't had much time for reading. Once I did get into it, though, I loved this book. So much. The premise is just fascinating - an unsolvable maze, a mystery girl, a conspicuous lack of memories...plus the plot is not totally focused on romance. AND I didn't completely figure out what was going to happen before the end! Bits and pieces of it, maybe, but I was still totally taken aback by a lot of what happened, which I love.

And Thomas is a great character. I don't find a whole lot of male protagonists that I actually like in YA, so that's cool, but even if male protagonists were the most common thing ever, Thomas is awesome. And I love the other characters as well - mystery girl (whose name I'll not tell you, since you don't find out until probably almost halfway through the book) totally kicks butt, and Chuck and Newt and Minho are all awesome too.

There is so much to love about this book. Thomas, the plot, just the whole thing. The beginning's a little slow, but do not give up! The Maze Runner will totally rock your socks off. Because it's awesome like that.