Novel Book Review

• Title: Partials
• Author: Dan Wells
• Copyright Date: 2012
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Lexile Score (www.lexile.com): HL810L
• # of pages: 468
  

Ever since the Break, the average lifespan of a newborn baby was fifty-six hours because of a disease called RM. The oldest human alive, besides the newborn babies destined for doom, was only fifteen years old. 

Envision your own life, but remove the presence of anyone under fifteen. What kind of world would that be? This is the enticing, compelling world that Dan Wells brings to life in his dystopian book called Partials. He also wrote other books like I Am Not a Serial Killer and Mr. Monster. Flawlessly, Wells creates this unique but frightening setting for the reader to settle into. 

Imagine a future of robots, wars, soldiers. Now give the robots morals, feelings, souls, and bodies just like ours. Discriminate them. They are the reason why humanity is drawing to a close. They have released RM into the atmosphere, and only the remaining 30,000 immune humans are left to fight for their species. These seemingly heartless soldiers are the Partials. 

But are they heartless? Partials by Dan Wells is incredibly moral provoking. What do you do when robots, designed with humanity, with traits like compassion, love, and fear, destroy your species? What defines humanity? Partials challenges your own beliefs by making you ask yourself: What would I do? 

• 

• 

In this sense, Partials is a brilliant book. As your opinions and your answers are challenged and changed throughout the book, so do the characters. From a lovestruck teenage girl who doesn’t see anything but her cute boyfriend, to a strong female protagonist that willingly listens to the Partials and constantly chooses good, Kira grows and develops throughout the book, along with those around her, which is constantly displayed through her actions and thoughts. 

On the other hand, the plot development was slow – in the first quarter of the book I found myself constantly wondering: Why should I care? Am I reading a dystopian or a rom-com? Maybe Wells developed Kira’s character too well. In the midst of the human species nearly going extinct, the author was describing where Kira found her clothes, how good her legs looked in those jeans, and how much she loved her thoughtful boyfriend. Thankfully, the pace then picked up and meaningful action related to the premise of the book began taking place. In addition, the overuse of imagery throughout the book can get overwhelming at times. 

Overall, I’d give this book four out of five stars. The setting is unique, and the themes and character development is amazing mainly because of thought-provoking questions this book brings up. However, the pacing and plot development could use some work. I’d recommend this book to a patient reader who can sit through a quarter of the book to get to the meat of the plot, which is worth reading because it truly challenges your morals like no other.  

---

Writing Process (Click to open):

---

Reflection:

I’ve never had to write a book review that didn’t simply summarise the whole story, so this was something new. In my very first draft, which isn’t even shown in the writing process because I immediately cut it down the moment after I finished, I had gone around 300 words over the limit, because I just enjoyed the book I read so much! I was excited to paint the setting of the book in a vivid way that would entice the reader. Choosing what parts to keep and what parts to delete was hard, because I wanted to keep everything I wrote, but I ended up being able to do it.