Review: Partials by Dan Wells

Title: Partials
Series: Partials Sequence #1
Author: Dan Wells | Website
Available: Now
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Sci-fi

Source: Amazon Vine








Synopsis via Goodreads:

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.

Dan Wells, acclaimed author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, takes readers on a pulsepounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question—one where our humanity is both our greatest liability and our only hope for survival.

My thoughts:

Partials is a book I enjoyed so much more than I had anticipated. I love a good post-apocolyptic/dystopian tale, but feared this may be a little too sci-fi for me. Not the case at all! I was thoroughly invested and amazed at how quickly the pages flew by. I loved all the twists and turns and how the author kept me guessing until the end. While I had my suspicions of what might happen, it was only {partial}ly correct and the author managed to surprise me and leave me with one thought "Holy Crap, I need the next book like NOW!".

Not to say this book is without flaws. Please keep in mind I read an advanced copy, so my issues may not be present in the final copies. I felt there was quite a bit of rambling with the writing which wasn't helping to keep the edge of your seat momentum you expect from a novel in this genre. There is also a TON of characters. Even when I reached the end I still couldn't keep some of them straight (mainly the adults in charge of the city in which protag Kira lives were the ones causing me trouble). Also wasn't a huge fan of Kira's boyfriend. I just wasn't feeling the chemistry and it felt like he tried too hard to be witty. His personality just felt forced. That is simply me being picky and I'm sure he is a perfectly ok love interest, but for me he was just meh.

I must say I loved, loved, loved (did I mention I LOVED) the ethnic diversity in Partials. Kira was of Indian descent which was an awesome choice on the author's part. I'm so tired of cookie cutter main characters in YA and was so glad to see an author finally listened!

Final verdict? This series is most definitely a keeper.