Review: Partials by Dan Wells

Title: Partials

Author: Dan Wells

Release Date: February 28^th, 2012

Series: Partials #1

Number of Pages: 472

Publisher: Balzar & Bray

Source: NetGalley

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.

Partials was one of the books I was really excited to read in 2012. I love the premise and I adore dystopian novels, so I was sure I would love it. Yet, it took me a while to really get into the story. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it. I just didn’t fall in love with the story. It just didn’t get me captivated as much as I had hoped.

Kira was a great main character. She was strong-minded and her determination to find a cure to the RM was so deep in her. I loved that there’s a reason why she wants it so bad. She wants to save her friends’ future child. That’s one thing I really liked about the novel, Kira isn’t simply ready to die simply to find a cure. She wants to find it to save her friends’ child. That makes it more believable to me. After all, she is risking more than her life, she is also risking her friends’ life.

The other characters were great in my opinion, but I wish we could have seen her friends a little more. I feel like I wanted to know more about them, well except Samm. We do learn a lot about him during the novel. I actually really liked him, and I’m curious to see what is going to happen to him next too. I was more interested in him than Kira’s boyfriend Marcus. Actually, I wasn’t that interested in Marcus.

Overall, I like the way the novel was written. I just feel like there was a little thing missing for me, the little thing that would have made me love it. Still, I know so many readers have loved this novel. Give it a try if you love dystopian, read other reviews that have been raving about this novel. It was great, simply not amazing to me.