Partials by Dan Wells

**This review is part of the Amazon Vine program**

I waffled in between liking this book and not liking it. Finally I arrived at giving it 3.5 stars. There were a lot of neat aspects to this dystopian novel, but ultimately, it was very predictable.

Kira lives in a world that has been ultimately destroyed by the partials. At last count, there are maybe forty-thousand humans left in the world that they know of, and they're living on Long Island. As a medic, Kira has been trying to find a cure for the RM disease that wiped out most of the population, and is now killing their children. The youngest person is fourteen as they have not found a way to reproduce, despite making it mandatory in women of young age. So she decides she needs to capture a Partial to study the biologically engineered creature. She just may learn some truths about her world that she isn't ready for in the process.

I like Kira. She's strong, makes mistakes, and isn't really afraid to say what she thinks. That being said, she is a little too perfect at times. And I completely guessed where her character was going to go by the end of the novel. My only thought was that I couldn't figure out how it made sense. But you'll see once you get to that point, I won't spoil it for you. Her boyfriend is pretty cool as well. He's got a sense of humor and adds some levity to the book. There are numerous other characters, but they aren't as focused on as Kira, and while it drives me nuts that we don't get their back stories sometimes, I'm hoping the continuing series will rectify that.

The writing, as said before, is predictable. I had an idea of what was going to happen long before it ever actually happened in the book. It also drags quite a bit for the first half. I got tired of the detail and just wanted something to happen, and then I got my wish and everything started happening at once and the second half went too quickly. I think some balance would have been nice. The idea was fairly innovative. With all the dystopian novels coming out it's hard to be wholly original. But I think Wells has written something here that's worth reading if you like that genre of books. It is considered young adult and while there's nothing extreme in here, it does reference to sex and other more mature themes.

I will probably continue reading this series. I like the concept and if the author balances the other books a little better they'll be worth reading. This one too was enjoyable when it came down to it as well.

Partials
Copyright 2012
472 pages