Partials by Dan Wells

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.

Partials begins with the premise that the entire world has changed. There was the Before (the age we currently live in) and then the After which is when Partials takes place.

Apparently humans decided to create beings that were almost entirely human to fight a war for us and then humanity got into a war with them – the Partials. The Partials won the war for all intents and purposes – the human survivors are reduced to living on Long Island. But life on the Island is not a paradise either.

A virus called RM helped the Partials win the war even more high handedly. And now that the war is over – even though tensions are still extremely high – the survivors that live on the Island have a more pressing concern. Every single baby born since the war has died from the virus and there’s no cure in sight.

Quite an intriguing premise, right!? I was practically glued to the book from page one.

For one thing Partials has an amazing cast of characters. I was in love immediately with all of them. If I had to pick a favorite it would be the star of the show – Kira. 16 years old she’s a spit fire. She’s smart, opinionated and most of all I love her hope. Kira isn’t one to sit around and  just hope though; she’s taking it into her own hands to do whatever she can to cure RM. She’s the one who hatches one of the craziest plans her friends have ever heard. When they learn one of their inner circle has become pregnant the situation becomes personal – if they don’t cure RM the baby will die.

This is when Partials really gets amazing in my opinion. Talk about an adventure! I was seriously blown away. I was fascinated, wanting to know more, eager to turn every page.

I really love all the details that Wells included, so much that we living in the “Before” can relate to. One of my favorites was Xochi, one of the characters, had a stash of mp3 players that had names etched in the back, so she played them like we would play CD’s, she would put them in her player and crank them up – like Jacob’s Bar Mitzvah [fake example but you get the idea]. These sorts of details really made me think about what it would be like to live in an After type world with remnants of the Before all around, even more than a lot of dystopias I’ve read.

I realize I’m using the word “love” a lot in this review – that should give you a big clue how much I errr loved this book! It’s got everything, mystery, suspense, action [and some of the action scenes are fan-fricken-tabulous talk about kickin’ ass and takin’ names] intrigue and HEART. Partials had my heart racing at times and there are some definite twists and turns that will make your jaw drop. One of the larger twists I kind of predicted but when it finally came out I was still shocked and wondering what would happen from there!

I should also mention there are a couple characters I crushed on – namely Marcus for his awesome sense of humor and his unwavering love for Kira and having the strength to let her do her own thing when she needed to. And Samm, I just want to give him a big huge hug.

When I turned that final page I wanted to grab the next book in the series IMMEDIATELY! I can’t wait to see where Wells takes these characters and this world – all I know is I’m definitely on board for the ride! Any fans of dystopian books are going to LOVE this one, and even if you’re not a fan this might grab you with its intense action and intrigue.

Also stop by Bex @ Kindle Fever’s review of Partials 

*Stay tuned later this week for a special post inspired by Partials – Bex and I are both in love with this book and so we’ll both be posting on each of our blogs something we think you’ll enjoy!

Find Partials by Dan Wells: AMAZON | BD | GOODREADS

Follow Dan Wells: BLOG | TWITTER

*Review Copy provided free of charge by the publisher in exchange for a fair review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.