Promised by Caragh M O'Brien

Goodreads
304 page, YA dystopian
Birthmarked #3
My rating: 4 stars

Synopsis

After defying the ruthless Enclave, surviving the wasteland, and upending the rigid matriarchy of Sylum, Gaia Stone now faces her biggest challenge ever.  She must lead the people of Sylum back to the Enclave and persuade the Protectorat to grant them refuge from the wasteland.  In Gaia's absence, the Enclave has grown more cruel, more desperate to experiment on mothers from outside the wall, and now the stakes of cooperating or rebelling have never been higher.  Is Gaia ready, as a leader, to sacrifice what--or whom--she loves most?

My 2 cents

I have to say, I loved the first book in this series, Birthmarked.  The second book, Prized, I didn't like nearly as much.  It was a beyond strange dystopian society!  Promised was a lot better than Prized, I think mainly because it combines the 2 different societies.   It is also almost constant action, unlike Prized.

So Gaia is now the leader of the new city, she calls New Sylum.  The plan is to go to the Enclave and barter for water.  She is thinking the Enclave will like the new diverse genetic pool.  Its a huge gamble, which she is aware of.  But it turns out the Protectorat doesn't care about her society.  Instead he wants Gaia, for reasons unknown.

Time is running out for not only the citizens of New Sylum, but also for the residents outside the wall.  The Protectorat has turned off all outside water.  If Gaia cooperates, he bargains he will supply them with a direct pipeline.  But can he be trusted?

Gaia was as awesome as ever in this book.  She does make a few mistakes, but her intentions are good, and she never loses sight of the bigger picture.  Leon completely frustrates me in this book.  He just seems to want to egg on his father, which doesn't go to well with Gaia.  I would have liked more Peter and Will in the story.  They make appearances in the beginning, but are almost nonexistent for most of the book.

Like I said before, this one has a lot of action.  The whole story takes place over the course of about 3 days.  I had no idea how it was going to end, which made it even more exciting!  I'm not sure if this is the last book in the series or not.  The story ended, but there was enough loose ends for another book.  I'm hoping so!