Partials by Dan Wells

Publisher's Summary: 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 pulse-pounding 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 Take: I am absolutely and utterly blown away by this book! There are not enough words in my vocabulary to describe how totally awesome this book is! I was told before I started reading Partials that it is a highly anticipated book of 2012, and it TOTALLY deserves that title! Once I was done with Partials, I felt like that one kid at the very end of The Incredibles, when he says, “That was totally wicked!” It’s only January right now but I’m thinking I’ve already found my favorite book of 2012! I know, I shouldn’t be saying that yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if not a single book this year could outshine my feelings for this one. I have read a lot of incredible books lately, but this one blew them all out of the water for multiple different reasons.

From the very first page until the very last, this entire book was extremely compelling with nail-biting intensity! And several times I even had tears rolling down my face! How could you not love a book that has overwhelming action, heart-fluttering romance, a kick butt heroine, 3 totally swoon-worthy guys, an awesomely shocking twist and a storyline that is truly remarkable?

While reading this book I had trouble sitting still! Every moment throughout the book I wanted to talk with someone about it. It would have been awesome to have a read-a-long with someone so I could share my shock and awe with them while reading!

So, if you read the summary you would see that this is obviously a post-apocalyptic story…but it is also headed toward dystopia because the people are all about survival and they are completely lost about what they should do to survive.

Kira, the main protagonist in Partials, is the very definition of a heroine! I really admired and grew extremely attached to her character. All she truly wants is a future for the human race but they all seem doomed for extinction. She will even give up her life if it means saving mankind! This 16 year old is extremely smart and she puts her skills to work by training to be a medic. But even Kira’s medical skills can’t solve the biggest medical problem of all in this post-apocalyptic world; not one single baby born over the last 11 years has survived longer than 4 days due to the RM virus that killed almost all of mankind. So when Kira finds out that her best friend is pregnant, she decides that she will do ANYTHING to save that baby and restore the future of man!

OK! So, I have to tell you one more thing on a personal note. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered a GIANT rat in my garage, and I have not been able to enter my garage again without getting the heebie-jeebies!!! Well there is this HORRIFIC rat scene in Partials that had me squirming and shrieking and thinking about that stupid rat in my garage!!! Ugh! I am squirming right now just thinking about it because it was soooo disgustingly horrible. It’s like when you see a bug and you start scratching because you think they are crawling all over you! Yeah, that’s what it was like for me!

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I just had to share some awesome quotes with you! So, here they are!

“But how can you live without a future?”

He swallowed. “By living in the present. The world is already over, Kira. Maybe one day a baby will live, maybe not. It’s not going to change anything. All we have left is each other, so let’s enjoy it. Let’s be together, like we’ve always said we’d be, and let’s forget all this death and fear and everything else and just live. You want to leave the island, let’s leave the island-let’s go somewhere no one will find us, away from the Senate and the Voice and the Partials and everything else. But let’s do it together.”

"Was that the girl who went to Manhattan with you?” asked Marcus. “I think we owe her a cookie.”

“I think we owe her a whole damn bakery,” said Xochi. “If I wasn’t hip deep in mud, I would kiss her on the mouth.”

ARC copy provided to me from HarperCollins for my honest review.