REVIEW: Partials By Dan Wells @harperteen

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.

Dan Wells is the author of the John Cleaver series: I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, and I Don’t Want To Kill You. He has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Campbell Award and has won two Parsec Awards for his podcast Writing Excuses. He plays a lot of games, reads a lot of books, and eats a lot of food, which is pretty much the ideal life he imagined for himself as a child.

Details Reading level: Ages 14 and up Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Balzer + Bray (February 28, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 0062071041 ISBN-13: 978-0062071040 SOURCE:  PUBLISHER MY THOUGHTS LOVED IT Like many dystopians thrillers for young adults these days, this one brings in all of the big guns.  Genetically manufactured robots(?) known as Partials are human like with emotions and have taken over earth since they bring with them a virus that decimates the population along with death to the point there are very few of either existing since the Partials have a built in expiration date.  The humans can’t maintain their population since only a few of them are immune to the virus and babies die within days of birth from it.  So Kira, a sixteen year old medic in training is on the trail for a cure.  With the capture of Samm, a partial, she begins to come closer and closer to a cure but lacks a bit of research.  Her lab is blown up and a riot is started as a cover to save Samm from certain death although she doesn’t know it, she is part of the Partials plan for their own cure.  Whew!   This really reminded my of Frankenstein, when the monster discovers he has feelings and the townspeople revolt against the creation of artificial life.  It brings into question, the exact meaning of life.  So if lab created life has all of the qualities of humans, what makes them not human?  The plot moved along these lines but at times it was a bit plodding.  I wish it had moved a bit faster but I will definitely want to read the next in the series just to find out what happens next.  The end of the book has Kira questioning herself and her own humanity, so I really want to see where this goes.  I like both of the main characters, the secondary characters were pretty forgettable though.  Each side has their own nasty and unlikable leader and I am still not certain which is good or evil, so that in itself will be interesting to find out.