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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Partials by Dan Wells


Synopsis:  The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials--engineered organ beings identical to humans--has decimated the population.  Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors of North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated.  The threat of Partials is still imminent, but worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade.  Our time is running out. 

Kira, a sixteen-year old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch.  But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them--connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

My 2 cents:  WOWZA!  This is an amazing read, and I think everyone should read it.  I liked it even better than Divergent, and I think is only second to the Hunger Games as far as YA dystopians!

First of all, this is the first of a series.  I don't know if it's going to be a trilogy or not; but I do know there will be a sequel.  This is a big book, packed with lots of story.  There is a lot of action, a lot of science, a lot of suspense, and even a bit of love thrown in.  The romance isn't a big part of the story though; I think we will get a lot more in the next book they way it ended.

The characters are phenomenal.  All of them were very will written with a lot of character development.  Considering how much action was going on, this was a pretty amazing feat for the author to pull off!  Kira was the perfect female lead; and I love that she discovers lots of self truths on her journey.  Marcus, her boyfriend, was very lovable; even though you were pretty upset with him about halfway through it; it was easy to see why he and Kira were a couple.  The supporting characters were also very well written; they came alive on the page for me.  

The story was a classic dystopian in a lot of ways; we had no idea what the government was really doing, but we were sure they were hiding something.  What they are hiding isn't even the big twist in the story; the twist was pretty unexpected, but there were some hints that had me thinking!  Not impossible to figure out, but not easy, either.  I love when a story can pull that off!

All in all, a great read.  I recommend that you get a copy pronto!  5 stars for me!

5 comments:

  1. I'm nearly finished with this one and you're right- it is really awesome!

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  2. Awesome review! I can't wait to read this book. *pouts* Everyone seemed to have an arc of it. I'm not a huge fan of dystopians but I'm a sucker for any action book.

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    1. I actually didn't get an ARC of it, I found it at my library!! I was so happy! Thanks for stopping!

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  3. I really enjoyed the book and am looking forward the next one. The book was well written and I like the author's ideas of what a post-virus society would look like and how it would operate. The plot moved fairly fast and there were one or two twists that I didn't see coming, so it wasn't totally predictable. My main complaint is that pretty much every adult is portrayed as stupid/evil/patronizing. When Kira had a chance to study RM, there wasn't anyone else available or interested in helping her? Seriously? I know she's supposed to be a genius, but come on, she's 16. I also felt that some of the characters needed to be more fully fleshed out, many of her friends and the authority figures felt one-dimensional.

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    1. I was just reading this comment, seemed to have missed it the first time around! The whole thing about her being the only one to research the virus--that is a plot point, and there's a reason for it, but its a spoiler so I can't share :)

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