"This novel was absolutely surprisingly fantastic: a book I couldn't put down, a world I didn't want to leave behind, and characters that I'll never forget." — Miss Remmers
Release Date: February 28th, 2012
Publisher: Harper Teen
Challenges: eBook Challenge, +75 Challenge, NetGalley Challenge
"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.""Partials" was a fantastic novel that I really knew nothing about before I started it — other than that everyone seems to enjoy it! While I did struggle a little bit in the beginning with "Partials" due to all the terms I didn't know (Break, Partials, RM, etc), after the first fifty pages I couldn't put this book down! It was brilliant! I actually exclaimed out loud in a few classes! When I had about 140 pages remaining I left for a hockey tournament in Detroit Lakes, MN and despite the audiobook I was listening to, my thoughts just kept returning to Samm and Kira! I ended up finishing the novel in the warming room at the hockey rink as I "watched" the other Bismarck team play.
I found myself in several different instances, in class and at the rink, taking a huge intake of breathe in a surprised fashion (does that make sense?) — loud enough so that students and hockey parents were like "What are you reading?!" At one point in class, I had to shut the Nook and say, "Goodness that was SO romantic!" There were only a few minutes left of class so I explained to the students what I was reading and I hinted at the "romance."
Speaking of romance, was anyone else rooting for Samm? Just wondering...
I know this review is a bit "everywhere" but really — just take my advice and pick up this novel! There really wasn't a single thing that bugged/irked me about it. Despite the "heavy" overtones, Marcus brought some great humor to the story that I really enjoyed; a lot of times I feel like humor in YA is so over dramatized that I get frustrated — not so with this book! In addition to the funny, there were some great surprises and twists that I never EVER saw coming — I didn't even really have an inkling that a surprise was coming (which is probably why I can't help but gasp out loud)! I was even able to somewhat understand or at least deduce what all the medical lingo meant!
This novel was absolutely surprisingly fantastic: a book I couldn't put down, a world I didn't want to leave behind, and characters that I'll never forget. There were moments that were tear-jerking sad, laugh out loud funny, and (as I mentioned) exclaim out loud surprising! How's that for adjectives!
Favorite Memorable Quotes: page numbers are in reference to the NetGalley ebook.
"The first human to communicate with another species in eleven years and he tells me to shut up" (158).
"Well thanks for not shooting anyone, I guess. My contribution was to somehow refrain from peeing myself. You can thank me later" (251).
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To the FTC, with love: eGalley from NetGalley