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 in 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 never even knew were there.
I've had Partials on my Kindle for a while now, but due to mixed reviews I have been putting it off. I got Fragments for review a few months ago, so I finally decided to give it a go - the mixed reviews pretty much cover it! I loved some aspects of the book, but some I really didn't and so my review is pretty mixed as well.
The general concept isn't the greatest - a disease in a dystopian book is a well-used trope and so that wasn't all that gripping. I did really like the idea of partials though it is a difficult concept to get around when you try answer the question; "Just how human are these things?". I also loved that the disease was killing the babies, that was a great touch and really gave Kira some motivation.
What I just didn't get was that of all the people alive in the world (which sure isn't that great, but is still a significant number) why is a sixteen year old girl who hasn't had the privilege of 'current world' education the one who thinks of this idea to ind the cure for RM. Surely some biologists and virologists survived the spread of RM? They must have for all this knowledge to have passed to kids like Kira. It made Kira seem like this super intelligent girl genius, and I don't like characters that seem so perfect.
Then again, I loved all of the other characters. The relationship between Marcus and Kira is complex but sweet, but I think there could be a possible love interest with Samm, one of the partials. I absolutely loved Samm, he really made this book for me - as soon as we started to get to know him I started to really enjoy this book.
Overall, Partials is a thrilling read with great characters. However, some of the plot doesn't make sense and there is a pretty slow build before the plot actually picks in. I look forward to reading Fragments, but I hope it's a little better than Partials.
Book released 29th March 2012 by HarperCollins Children's Books (UK)
Book received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Reviews for other books by this author:
I see that a lot from Dystopia, sometimes. If you think hard enough about it, it tends not to make sense! LOL. I think as long as the characters are well written, I will enjoy this one. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAlise @ Readers In Wonderland