Firstborn by Lorie Ann Grover - A book review

This is one of those books that the cover and book synopsis caught my attention and those were the sole reason's for choosing this book.  After about a couple of chapters in, I realized the book was much different than I thought it would be.

It's a world dominated by men, they choose and decide who lives and does what.  Additionally, all parents or in actuality all fathers are required to have only son's as their firstborn.  However, when a daughter is the firstborn, the father has two choices.  He can declare her as a male, or leave the daughter to die in the outer wild Providences of the land.

When Tiadone was born, her father had those two choices put in front of him.  He decided to be the first to declare his daughter as a male, and raise her in the community to be a boy and son.  Additionally this means, forcing out all femininity in her.  All the years of her life, have been spent pushing away the girl within and training to become a man.
Additionally, when each child is born they are given an egg that will one day in their teenage years hatch and become a magnificent bird whom will choose to stay with the man while he completes his rites while earning his place within the community.  If this doesn't happen, they are outcast.

Tiadone, wants nothing more than to please her father and show the entire village that he did not make a mistake by allowing her to live.  In this harsh world, she does her best to follow the ways of the land, and earn her right to live.  When she becomes of age, and her bird hatches her fears are quickly resolved as the magnificent creature takes to her and decides to go and grow with her.
The only problem with Tiadone, as she is coming of age.  She is finding it harder and harder to suppress her and hide her feminine traits.  Especially the one, where she is falling in love with her live long best friend Ratho.

As Tiadone, her bird Mirko and her best friend head out to become men, and establish their part and acceptance to be able to one time return to the village they were raised.  She realizes her life is becoming harder and harder to be a man, especially as her body is changing and she is surrounded by other boys who too are trying to become warriors and protectors.  This throws a series of events, and circumstances that may forever alter the life Tiadone always dreamt of.

I won't giveaway the ending, but I will say that was the only real disappointment for me in the book.  This isn't really a bad thing, but my thought is it must have been left this way, so that a sequel could one day be made.  In other words, I'll have to keep my eyes on the author page, to see if/when this happens

This book is quite different than really any that I have read before.  It's a little more fantasy, and harsh situations that I originally thought it would be.  I found it a little hard to get into at the beginning, but once I got through about 40 pages, I found I was enjoying it more.  The reason I found it hard, wasn't because of the story line, I actually enjoyed the story line.  The names in the book, names of places and religions were a little hard to keep track of at first because they are a little odd.
If your looking for a book that is a tad out of the ordinary, that will take your mind to a different world while reading.  Then you will likely enjoy this book.  This is a young adult book and the content is fine for any reader.  But I believer those 16 and older will likely enjoy this more than younger ages.

AUTHOR PAGE

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this book by Booklook for my review.  I was not required to write a positive review, all thoughts and opinions above are my own.