Partials By Dan Wells

Audiobook Edition, Narrated by Julia Whelan

Finished on 2/15/2017

Genres: YA, Dystopian, SCI FI, Kickass Female Protagonist

1 Unborn Natural Human will be killed by 1 Terrible Virus Created by 1 Genetically Engineered Human Species Unless 1 Teenage Human Geneticist Can Find 1 Cure out of 5

Spoiler-tastic Review

I’ve been putting off listening to this audiobook for years. I purchased it soon after its release, as I’m a fan of Dan Wells’ ‘Writing Excuses’ podcast and enjoyed his other book ‘I Am Not A Serial Killer.’ I never got around to listening to this for almost six years, until I plumed the depths of my book collection for my Mount Readmore project. I now regret holding off for so long because this was a fine book.

This is a YA Dystopian novel, in the same genre as ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Divergent.’ I am neither YA nor female, which I think was the gender this book was targeted at. Nonetheless this novel had much to satisfy my intellectual appetites, including a semi-serious use of genetic engineering, proteomics and a discussion of the value of human life. It wasn’t Hard Sci Fi by any means, but had a patina of plausible science to suspend my disbelief.  Instead of viewing the artificial humans as being entirely evil creations of mad scientists, the author went out of his way to humanize them and even make the reader believe in them.

Is this book for everyone? Probably not. I myself am not a gigantic fan of Dystopian literature (read: I hate dystopian), and YA hasn’t been in my coterie for a few years now. However if you are a fan of one or more of it’s genres you will find a well crafted work of art in Dan Wells’ novel ‘Partials.’ And who knows? Even if you’re not a fan of the genres you might like it. Give it a whirl if you’re wont to do so.

A note about the audiobook edition: the voice actor did an okay job at the narration. Not the best and not the worst.