Partials – Dan Wells (A Kickass Review)

Hardcover, 1st Edition, 472 pages
Published February 28th 2012 by Balzer + Bray
Source: Net Galley

Synopsis:

Humanity is all but extinguished after a war with partials–engineered organic beings identical to humans–has decimated the world’s population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island. The threat of the partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to the disease in over a decade. Humanity’s time is running out.

When sixteen-year-old Kira learns of her best friend’s pregnancy, she’s determined to find a solution. Then one rash decision forces Kira to flee her community with the unlikeliest of allies. As she tries desperately to save what is left of her race, she discovers that the survival of both humans and partials rests in her attempts to answer questions of the war’s origin that she never knew to ask.

Combining the fast-paced action of The Hunger Games with the provocative themes of Battlestar Galactica, Partials is a pulse-pounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question–one where our sense of humanity is both our greatest liability, and our only hope for survival.

Review:

The YA genre is certainly rife with dystopians. You can’t go out without tripping over one. Okay fine, that is an exaggeration but I can’t help but get weary of the same plots with a few subtle differences (you know, differences like the cause of the ultimate breakdown of modern society). There’s usually a girl. She usually has powers. There’s also usually a society with tyrannical rulers/dictators/whatever you wanna call them (a rose by any other name and all…). Then there is a boy. Mysterious. Intriguing. Attractive. Whom the girl will feel attracted to against her will. And who will make her see her the things wrong with the system she has been blissfully living in. Okay fine, not blissfully. Let’s say complacently. How does that sound? Good? Okay.

There, I have described the majority of dystopians out there. It’s almost formulaic. I’m almost ready for it to be a girl the other girl is attracted to. Or a robot. A cyborg! (Though, I’d say Prince Kai already has that down, hur.)

Anyway, to the review proper now. All the things I mentioned above? The stereotypical elements of a dystopian novel? These are all present in Partials. But you know what? They all work splendidly together to create a novel that is, a lot of times, breath taking. And no, I’m not even being cheesy (okay maybe I am, slightly) saying that but it’s just. Well.

Partials, as all really good dystopians do, gives a peek at a future that may very well be our own. It really could be taken as a warning to all the scientists out there, you know, the ones playing God. Please be careful with whatever you are genetically creating. Seriously.

Anyway, Partials is really, really entertaining. Since I said two reallys, you know I mean serious business. There is wit, there is a touch of romance with Marcus and a whole promise of more romance with Samm. There is intrigue and boy, is there action. Lots of action. Casualties. Too many and some of them were senseless. So on a purely shallow level, I was very satisfied by Partials. It promised to be entertaining and it was. Very. The writing was sharp (and I mean this as an adjective to describe how very readable the novel was), the plot was well constructed and the pacing was spot on. Totally awesomesauce.

But. Well, you knew it was coming. I had some troubles with the novel. Not huge troubles. Just ones that niggle at me until I speak them out. And this may be because I analyze novels on a daily basis and I can’t let a passage pass me by without analyzing the hell out of it but…I felt that the synopsis or rather the excerpt that we read on the back cover of the novel, you know, the final words of the last president? The gravitas conveyed by his final message, the sorrow, the melancholy, the loss, the utter devastation…these elements were subsumed by the overly action oriented novel. I liked the action, I did but I would have liked for us to take a breath and dwell on the immense loss of humanity. And perhaps it’s just me, but I felt distanced from all the characters in the novel. As though there was something that kept me from getting inside their heads and knowing what they were thinking and feeling and I didn’t like that. It kept me from connecting to them which in turn kept me from empathizing with them and all these things interfered with my final enjoyment of the novel.

Sometimes you read a book and it resonates within in; you keep on thinking about it. I remember being affected by Birthmarked by Caragh O’Brian (we will forget book the two exists) but I didn’t quite get the same feeling from Partials. Maybe it was because I went in expecting quite a different novel than I got.

That being said, I still enjoyed the novel tremendously. In fact, I think this will make a kick ass movie. Is someone out there listening? You could sell millions. Anyway, I am definitely reading the second one in the series and I wholeheartedly (with ALL my heart, not just three quarters of it) recommend it to you. Yes you, the one who’s still wondering. Go read this.