Monday, August 27, 2012

Partials by Dan Wells

Genre: post-apocalyptic, science fiction
Series and Book #: Partials Series #1
Pages: 480
Summary:

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic 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 the 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 no one even knew were there.
 
--------

This was recommended to me by a friend who said it was really, really good and she wanted me to read it. I totally believed her because this looks really, really good but as the story wore on I was like "c'mon, when's it going to get to the good part?" You know those books where it takes a few chapters for you to get into it? This is one of those books. The pace was inconsistent. It was slow in some parts, when Kira is trying to decide whether or not to defy her government or be a good little girl and sit on her hands while babies die, or it could be very fast, when Kira's battling everyone she's trusted in order to save the ones she loves.

Kira was very stubborn. In a good way! When she knew she was right, and that the elders were just being paranoid, she still went after her theory because she knew that if she was right she could save thousands of lives. I liked how she kept fighting to save the baby of her best friend. Her loyalty and passion made for a very determined heroine. Always a good thing.

Overall, Partials was a unique twist on the way the world could end. While questions were answered during the book, more questions popped up in the last couple of chapters. And the conclusion: shocking! I hope in the sequel Dan answers those questions, and elaborates more on Kira and Samm's odd relationship.

The Cover: The city is isolated, surrounded by nothing, just like how Kira's city is thought to be the only living civilization in the world. It sets the tone for the novel nicely.

No comments:

Post a Comment