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Monday, December 9, 2013

Partials

Partials summary 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.


Review after the jump
Bailey

It took me 3 days to read the first 30% of this book. At that point I debated on whether or not to continue reading the thing. It wasn't that it was badly written, it was just boring. There were exciting things happening but I was disinterested. I think a lot of that has to do with the characters but I'll let Mia tell you about that. 

I bought this book because the description seemed to talk about something different. I was interested in what Partials were, I liked the sci fi twist to a post apocalyptic world. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece but this book just fell flat- it didn't deliver on what was a promising premise. 

After the 30% mark on my Kindle the pace picked up a smidge. I finished the rest in one night. The Partials were finally introduced and I was compelled to read on if only to find out where this asinine plot was taking me. And yes, the plot was a little ridiculous.

Having read a few other reviews I have to agree with the book making kids seem a lot smarter than adults. I was so frustrated with the adults and their need for power to the point of not seeing logical reason. When Kira presented her plan to the head doctor and he outright told her no on stupid principles I almost quit the book. And really it seemed like, throughout the whole book, everyone but our main girl made bad decisions, whether it was from being scared or wanting power or just being evil, everyone else in the book seemed illogical. It made the thing difficult to get through.

Action. There was action in this book but I never thought for a second that anyone was going to get hurt that didn't. I knew who the key players were and who was going to live and die from the get go. Therefore a lot of the action was ho hum. It kept the book fast paced, I'll give it that; I did want to go from page to page to find out what was going to happen but in the end nothing really happened so what was the point? 

The last half of the book was ok. Seriously, that's the best I can say about it. It was ok. I have been debating on getting the second book merely because I am curious as to what happened to Samm. Other than that, I could care less about the rest of it

The story was fast paced but at the same time boring. I was not impressed with anything about it. The style of writing was standard, the descriptions repetitive, and the overall arc of the story was contrived and illogical. It's getting 2 stars because it's not the worst thing I've ever read and the action was ok, but overall it's not something I'd recommend wasting your time on.



Mia

Ugh! Bailey picks the worst books, I swear. She sees sci fi and robots and thinks she's found a gem. I want to punch her in the head for this read. I hated it. Every painstaking word.

Romance: There was none. NONE. People that were married were almost like they were forced together because of circumstances. I never saw what Kira and Marcus were together. She kept mentally telling herself that she loved him but it never showed. They felt more like brother and sister then boyfriend and girlfriend. Uck. And if there was supposed to be some love between Kira and Samm...there wasn't. And besides, he's a robot. Put all the AI you want in him he's still a robot. Just...gross...no thank you. So romance gets a big fat 0. 

Characters: Sigh. Where to begin with this mess. I'm ok with not describing your MC. I am. It helps your audience project themselves or their ideals on the MC. But about three chapters in you find out she's Native American (I think that's what it says). That's kinda specific! Here I've been picturing a red head, adult at first until the end of the chapter where they hint she's more like 16. Now you're telling me she's Native American looking? What the heck? That would have been nice to know, I don't know, in the beginning! That made me so mad when I read that part.

Then there is Marcus. Who I am sure is lovely. He's the comedic relief though most of what he says is predictable. I have no idea what he looks like. I think he's tall. That's about it. I hate that the author didn't give me a clear picture of such a main character. Seriously, he's supposed to be her boyfriend and I don't know what he looks like? 

The rest of the cast is just so one dimensional it's not even funny. And there is a lot of secondary cast! Senate meetings would happen and names were being dropped like no one's business. Am I supposed to remember who each of these people are? I gave up trying to keep them straight; they weren't important enough for me to focus that much energy on them. But every time they had a meeting I groaned. Ugh, a meeting of these five blowhards I'm supposed to be able to tell the difference between but I can't. Just bad characterization.

The only character I liked was Samm but I knew I would like him because I knew what he would do. He was the bad guy who wasn't really a bad guy and was going to save our MC girl. More than once. Predictable. And I don't know what he looked like either except he was 19 and hot. Yes, more than once his "hotness" was commented on. 

Every other person was just a caricature of a type of person. There was nothing to make me attached to anyone. Kira, our MC, turned into some sort of badass somewhere along the way but I'm not sure when or how that happened. I liked her bravery in the end, she reminded me a lot of Tris from Divergent, but she also annoyed me in a lot of the same ways. And how she got to be that way was never discussed. She just was. All of a sudden. A badass. 

So if I could give 0 hearts I would give 0 hearts. As it is, 1 is just too many but it will have to suffice. I'll say it was for Samm because at least I liked him and he was the one character that remained true to himself throughout the book. Though there was not enough of him.

My recommendation? Don't read it. Not worth your time or money. 



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