Sunday, May 20, 2012

Partials by Dan Wells

genre: young adult science fiction

The world is in serious trouble. After multiple wars, the human race is nearly extinct and everyone knows exactly why: the virus that nearly killed everyone is killing every new baby that is born. A new baby hasn’t survived in 11 years. 16 year old Kira, a medic-in-training who is a genius with virology thinks, HOPES, she can figure out how to stop it but her ideas are radical and extremely unpopular. Her research needs to involve the Partials, the genetically modified beings that look exactly like humans but are crazy-hard to kill and responsible for the virus in the first place. With the clock ticking and tensions running high, Kira’s choices are going to affect everyone in a political climate that values stability and longevity over human rights.

I’m a bit torn over this one. I did enjoy reading it – it has a far more science-fictiony plot than a lot of dystopia I’ve read lately and I liked that. A love triangle wasn’t at the heart of the story, which sometimes I really appreciated but other times, I wished there was a bit more of a romantic angle. The political pieces sometimes felt a bit scripted but it was a believable premise, to some degree. What I did NOT believe, unfortunately, was that somehow a 16 year old girl was such a virological genius. I needed some kind of reason to believe that she, of all the researchers in all the world, might be the one to solve this most important problem.

There were a couple good twists layered in the vaguely predictable plot, enough that I think I would like to read more, just to see how it resolves. I’d give it 3.5 stars.

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1 comment:

Melissa said...

Good to know about this one. I've seen the cover and wondered if it was any good.

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