Partials

Partials

Dan Wells
4.5/5.0



Ok. So it’s the year 2076. 11 years after the outbreak of RM, a virus that annihilated all but 1% of the human population. In fact, humans are so annihilated that they have all pretty much set up camp on Long Island. The survivors that are left have natural immunity to RM. However, even though those that are left are immune, the human race is still doomed, because the survivors can’t reproduce.

The government thinks that if they force the women to just keep having babies, eventually one of the little tykes is bound to be born immune. So they implement the Hope Act and tell everyone woman over whatever age they have to get knocked up, immediately. They’ve been going at it (pardon the pun) for 11 years now, and so far, nada. Their answer is just to lower the pregnancy age again and cross their fingers, because THAT'S been working so well.

Enter Kira. She’s 16 and training to be a medic. She’s watching babies die left and right, and it bugs her. Instead of hopping on the “lets just make more babies” bandwagon, she decides to go directly to the source of RM. The Partials. 

The Partials are bio-engineered robot/cyborg/whatever things that the U.S. created to fight wars for them. They are cold, unfeeling, and ruthless. Which is all good for an army fighting for you, however, when that army turns on you and the releases a virus that annihilates you, not so good.

However, since Kira knows that producing babies at an alarming rate doesn’t solve anything, she decides to go get herself a Partial. If she can go out into the vast wasteland that was once the US, capture one, and bring it back without getting herself killed, she can study it, and hopefully come up with a cure for RM.

The story is her doing just that, and let me tell you, it’s freaking awesome!

I really love Kira. The only way to make her better was if she had been written as a little more sarcastic. However, she emcompasses most of the other qualities I adore in a female lead. She is smart, strong, independent, and able to think for herself. I also love that she doesn't spend the ENTIRE book whining about how much she loves this guy and/or that guy. She isn't waiting for prince charming to come rescue her. As far as she is concerned there are bigger issues out there and prince charming can suck it.

Wells' did an amazing job of creating the world around them. I could just imagine how utterly insane it would be to walk through these cities outside of Rhode Island and it just be a desolate wasteland. All the buildings, skyscrapers, homes, etc are empty. Cars are left haphazardly on the street, some of them still occupied by their owners remains (because this virus wasn't playing, it wasted no time killing your ass).

Also, since I live in Georgia, the kudzu references kind of cracked me up. I promise you, if something like this happened in Georgia, Georgia would just be a giant ball of kudzu. So, to me kudzu growing up around all of these giant buildings and slowly taking back all that man had claimed seemed pretty realistic. That shit doesn't play.

It was a good read with a lot of twists and turns that I really didn’t expect to see coming. Which is nice, because I read a lot, and often, things get rather predictable.

Overall, I found it a good read and I would highly recommend it to those who love dystopian/post-apocalyptic stories. This is a series I definitely intend to keep following. Hopefully it just gets better!

So... that being said… I’m off to read the second book in this series Fragments. I’ll let you know how that goes!

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