coral reviewed Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien
None
2 stars
I'm not sure whether I'd have liked this better if I'd read it in a paper or ebook format, rather than listening to the audiobook, but I suspect I would have. They cast the wrong person to perform this, someone more suited to a children's book than to a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Worse, she definitely mispronounced and even misread some words (in context, on at least two occasions, it was obvious what the author intended the sentence to say and what mistake caused the wrong word came out), which was distracting.
That said, it's a bit formulaic, with a naïve, low-wisdom protagonist, so I was never going to love it. If it's YA, it's a middling addition to the genre, comparable to Divergent, if a little different in tone. If it's intended for adults (which was the implication based on my limiters in Overdrive), it's honestly a little weak.