Marked

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. Ruby races the viral clock to uncover long buried secrets about her dead parents, and her once cloudy future becomes clear. She's the key to finding the cure, but is she willing to pay the price? KIRKUS REVIEW A teenager attempts to find a cure for a deadly, civilization-threatening virus in debut author Baker's dystopian YA series starter. Overall, Baker's prose is sharp and vivid, and she manages to immediately plunge her readers into the world of the novel. The story is swiftly paced and features some surprising twists and intriguing characters. The plot doesn't challenge the strict boundaries of the dystopian genre, but its combination of sci-fi, mystery, and teen romance still makes for a compelling adventure. A promising YA debut about a girl's search for a future in the wreckage of the past.