Review ~ Partials (Partials Sequence #1) - Dan Wells

Purchased by myself as I received book 2 as an ARC

ISBN: 000746522X
Publisher: Haper Collins Children's Books

Description
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.

My Opinion
This book has drawn mixed feelings from me. On one hand I thought it was one of the more interesting, original and believable sci-fi books I have read that used a post-apocalyptic setting. However, on the other hand I had some serious issues while reading it. 

The book started off incredibly slowly and I must admit it took me a few days to get into it, and even then I  struggled. There wasn't much action to begin with and even though it gave you the basic background information I found it didn't hold my attention very well, especially if I just wanted to read a quick chapter here and there. I mean seriously, they seemed to drag on forever at some points. Saying that though I am glad I stuck with this book as once you get into part two it starts to pick up and only gets better as it moves towards the ending. The action increases and so does the character development. I liked how Kira developed into a strong female lead and fighter compared to the frustrated medic and the transformation was great to read. As well as this I liked the overall plot line, yes viruses that kill off everyone have been done repeatedly but books I have read like that normally include a form of zombie and I was pleased to find a book set near the extinction of the human race that wasn't zombie related. The way in which the virus was created and spread was great too, Wells used medical language however the balance struck between being clear, understandable and and not complex was well done. More over I found the Partials to be an interesting development, I think I would have liked to know more about them and how they are living now but maybe that will come up more in book 2. 

The major thing I didn't like about this book was the lack of romance in the relationships. Marcus supposedly loved Kira and wanted to marry her, however there was no passion or spark there even when he tried to convince her to stay. For me this just didn't seem very believable and everything about the relationships seemed forced. Also, when Samm was introduced I thought it was the beginning of something else, how wrong was I though. Instead it just led to more unnatural speech and strained relationships. I liked how Samm kept his secrets and I seriously didn't see the twist at the end but I feel the author could have done more with his character, however with the way he leaves the story maybe something will.

Overall this was an enjoyable to read and because I have received the sequel as an ARC I will definitely continue the series. There were a few issues with believabilty for me and sometimes the writing came across a wooden but I would recommend this to sci-fi fans and any apocalyptic fans looking for something new with a slight twist on the genre.