Review: Partials by Dan Wells

Partials (Partials #1) by Dan Wells
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication date: March 29th, 2012
Number of pages: 470
Format: Paperback
Purchase: Amazon | The Book Depository | Book World Australia

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.

There have been so many YA dystopian novels out there recently that sometimes they begin to blur together to a point where you can't pick out originality. This story is definitely not anything like that.
Dan Well has created such a magnificent and thrilling story that intertwines Dystopian and Sci-Fi into one. It's done at a natural and realistic pace.
For quite a while, I had resisted reading this book for reasons I can't even think about now. I had actually heard about it via a friend who read and loved it. I don't even think I even comprehended what the story was even about at the time -- but later I then added it to my to-be-read list. I was then lucky to find it at a cheap price that I didn't even think twice about buying it. It only gave me even more incentive to read it.

It's the year 2076 -- many years into the future that we find ourselves at now, the human population has faded over recent times after a epidemic plague which killed off its many residents. The ones that did survive found that each child that was born into this world died not so soon after birth, even if they lived that long. There was some disease which was released by a species who was half machine. In hope to find a cure, the senate makes it law that all girls from 18 years upward must get pregnant as often as they could in hope to prolong humanity and to repopulate the world once more.

We meet Kira, sixteen years of age medic intern who is working in the maternity ward at the hospital. The more she sees the death of babies time after time starts to get to her. She wants to do something, to help somehow but doesn't know how. When her sister announces that she is pregnant, Kira then becomes determined to find a cure for this disease one way or another. She won't let another girl go through the turmoil that she has seen with everyone else after the death of a child.  But she knows the problem is not with the birth... that it is far greater than any of the researchers are thinking about.

Dan Wells has created such an amazing world. It's horrifying. Intriguing and brings out so many matters in the genre. This is not just a dystopian world. When you add science and cyborbs, then you start to realize there is more to this novel than meets the eye.
Kira feels so much older than her sixteen years. In the beginning I totally thought she was in her early twenties because she is so mature for her age. It just goes to show what the world, especially this world can do to someone so young. She is a fighter. A survivor and that is what she will always be.

With the help of her friends, Kira knows she can accomplish the impossible. Not everyone believes her ---  but when she sets her mind on something there is no going back. This is only the beginning...
While things start off slow in the beginning, the more you get involved in the plot and what is going on... the pace quickly changes and before you know it -- things have changed to a degree where it's impossible not to go along with the journey.

I can't wait to get my hands on the second book in this series. I know it's out -- so I'll definitely be getting on that ASAP.

Rating: 4.5 / 5