Partials

Pros: realistic societal tensions in a post-apocalyptic world, compelling quests, strong female protagonist

Cons: don't learn as much about the partials as you'd like, the protagonists get out of several tough situations with surprising ease

For Parents: no sex, no swearing, lots of violence, but nothing too graphic (shooting/death, off stage torture)

It's been 11 years since the genetically engineered partials rose up against their human creators, unleashing a virus that decimated the human population. Now, the remaining survivors live on Long Island, most in the community of East Meadow, which, due to its Hope Act of forcing all women 18 and over to give birth as often as possible, has created a resistance movement called the Voice. Into this turmoil comes a brilliant young hospital intern, Kira. She wants to study the one thus far unstudied aspect of the plague that still kills all human children born. Partials.

Partials is quite an adrenaline rush. There's a lot of action and several quests, starting, but not ending, with Kira's quest to find and capture a partial. While I wasn't always convinced that their plans would work as well as they did, enough things went wrong that I was willing to overlook how often enough went right.

Kira herself was an interesting character. She's borderline irritating, in that she's stubborn and ‘knows' the best course of action, despite only being 16 and a ‘plague baby' (ie, someone born just before the end of the modern world and too young to know what happened with the partials from personal experience). What redeems her is her reliance on her friends and her willingness to accept a change of plans when necessary.

What really sets this book apart is in its realistic depiction of society. There's a wide spectrum of viewpoints, each valid given the circumstances. East Meadows slowly becomes more and more of a dictatorship, as the Voice attacks escalate and the senate institutes more laws to keep the citizens ‘safe', or, as Kira starts to believe, ‘controlled'. Even the principle characters argue over the right and wrong of the senate's decrees. Particularly the debated decision of lowering the Hope Act to include those 16 and up (which would affect them directly). The disconnect between the older generation and the ‘plague babies', shown by the adults' disdain, was also well written.

My only complaint was that you don't learn as much about the partials as you'd like. This book is set up for a sequel, so I'm hoping the partials - and ParaGen, the company that created them - will have more of a part to play.

I'll be waiting eagerly for the next book in this series.

A fun, quick summer read. Kyra is strong and smart and stands up for her beliefs. Getting to see the dystopian government corruption and the decisions that lead up to it were interesting. And, although it was a small moment, I enjoyed Wells addressing that it is nice to feel protected, but that Kyra doesn't have to be because she is strong enough to do it herself.

Looking forward to Book 2.

I am not particularly shy when it comes to my general dislike of dystopian fiction. I tend to get angry when I read it, and since I read primarily for enjoyment and entertainment it makes little sense for me to seek out stories that do not provide those things. (There is also the fact that so much of the dystopian fiction I have read has strained my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point...that does not exactly recommend the genre to me.)

So with that in mind, based on the way people have shelved and tagged Partials on Goodreads and other book sites, I shouldn't like it. The thing is, while there are definite dystopian elements to this book, I would not classify it as dystopian fiction. It is much more a post-apocalyptic survival story, and that is how it is presented from the start. The dystopian elements are not the front and center focus of the story, and with that I find I can care about the characters. I think it not being in first person also helps with this.

Now I just need to find a print (or ebook) copy of the sequel to borrow.

I loved this book!
I got this as an audiobook because I liked the sound of the plot description. I'm a biomedical scientist (3rd year student) and microbiology & genetics are my favourite areas of study. So reading about a virus that killed 99.99% of the human population really appealed to me. And I was not disappointed at all. This book isn't the kind of book that has a super exciting blurb, but then turns out to be more about the main character's love life. This book had some love (Kira has a boyfriend - not a spoiler), but it was so little compared to the science-y story. I loved reading (hearing) about life after the break, the Voice, the Partials. The big plot twist wasn't a total surprise to me, but I think it was intentional. There were hints along the way.
So yeah, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves dystopian. I can't wait to read the second book.

This book had a slow start that was too concerned with witty dialogue instead of focusing on accurate and interesting world building. There were also come glaring mistakes in both the set up of the Partials world and the continuity as the story progressed. That being said, Partials, a story about the aftermath of a plague is a solid offering to the dystopian/apocalypse genre. I appreciated that the romance that is always inherent in books of this nature was put aside for the sake of the cause. That's a decision that is more realistic, though most dystopian books seem to spend more time on relations rather than the stark reality of the world sucks how are we going to solve it? The dialogue, though I complained about it earlier, is a strength though. For fans of the witty comeback, Marcus has some pretty awesome quips that he sets loose throughout the book that defuse tension and make him a more dimensional character than the stock love interest. If you can stand to ignore some of the plot holes and world building fails, this series will definitely entertain you.