Birthmarked by Caragh M O'Brien (Good)

Hi everybody! I finished Birthmarked early this week and it was...interesting. Personally, I think that it is a more girl-oriented book than what I normally read. (I'm putting that out there for all you guys.) But, then again, I think any book with a more sophisticated love scheme is a girl's book, even if that's not what it's all about.  Here's the cover:

Birthmarked is about a girl, Gaia, who is the midwife for a village and has to give three babies per month to the advanced society of the Enclave.  She happily serves until she hears that her prisoner parents are about to be executed.  The only way to save them would be to break into the Enclave and orchestrate a prison-break.  The problems? Sgt. Grey, who seems to be going out of his way to "help" Gaia; a mysterious black oven; an intervention to a cruel execution that could lead Gaia into deeper trouble; a secret code; and the knowledge of something that might change everything: the birthmarks.

This book builds on itself so much that I can't really give you any hints of the really good stuff.  I can say that a love interest builds between Gaia and another character and almost all of the characters have at least one juicy secret.

The book is the first in a trilogy, and I'm planning on reading the rest of the series after I finish the rest of the books I got for Christmas. 

My only problem with the book was that (mild SPOILER ALERT) the time in the prison was way too long.  Usually when the character's captured in a book, I think that the time before they figure out a way out is a bit short (Black Water, Fablehaven:Keys to the Demon Prison, Ranger's Apprentice, 13th Reality: The Blade of Shattered Hope, Tunnels, The Death Cure, Gone, and probably a couple other books I can't remember right now). Usually the author just skips a little so that it doesn't seem boring; the author of Birthmarked did skip a little, but it still ended up seeming really long.  (It's pretty impressive to get me to think that that part of the story is too long; that might have been on purpose but still.)  SPOILER ALERT OFF

In any case, I liked the book and hope you read it as well.  I finished A Door in the Woods last night and will post on that soon. 

Oh, and by the way, the books that showed as examples above are really good, and I would suggest you to read them along with the rest of the books in their series. In case you don't want to risk seeing a spoiler by accident, here: Pendragon: Black Water, Fablehaven: Keys to the Demon Prison, Ranger's Apprentice, 13th Reality: The Blade of Shattered Hope, Tunnels, The Death Cure, and Gone.

That's all for this week.  Have fun watching the Superbowl!