Marked by Bridget E. Baker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Content: Some mild cursing


If one touch can infect. . .

All Ruby Behl wants for her seventeenth birthday is a good career path match, and to kiss her best friend and long time crush, Wesley Fairchild. Unfortunately, the simplicity of teenage wishes evaporated a decade ago when the Tercera virus nearly wiped out the human race. Transmitted through touch, the slightest contact is prohibited in the safe haven community of Port Gibson.

Then a kiss is deadly. . .

An innocent game of Spin the Bottle, a rite of passage for Port Gibson’s teens, provides the opportunity Ruby’s been waiting for, but when Wesley winds up Marked, Ruby realizes her first kiss may also be her last.

Marked is the first book in a new YA post-apocalyptic trilogy and it was very hard to put down. I have to say that it's was one of the best self-published books I've ever read. In fact I really couldn't tell it was a self-published book. It didn't have a lot of the issues I've run into while reading most of them. The plot was good, there were no grammar or spelling issues that I noticed, and I felt like the characters were consistent.

As for the characters, for the most part I liked Ruby, although she annoyed me a few times with her self-loathing and headstrong behavior. Despite those weaknesses, she was a strong, independent thinker. I kind of liked that her strengths were not in physical strength or combat, but in other areas. I also felt like the love triangle was handled pretty well, and the fact that there was a love triangle in this book didn't annoy me at all, which was a relief, because sometimes they can be so bad. The guy who becomes the main love interest in the book was a bit over-protective at times, but at least he listened to her when she asked him not to do something, and I was also really happy when she called him out on some of his behavior. That's more than I can say for some of the adult characters I've read about in books (see my review of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness for an example).

There were some nice twists in the book. I did predict a couple of them, but that was ok, it didn't make the book any less enjoyable. I recommend this if you like post-apocalyptic YA books. I'm really looking forward to reading the next book in the trilogy.

Thanks to the author for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.