Pure

4Q 4P (my codes)
I am not yet finished with this book, honestly, since it's rather long. But I will be finishing it soon. It's captivating. Julianna Baggott has created a world of haves and have nots that makes you rethink your assumptions about both groups. In a world blasted apart and violently segregated, two souls are trying to survive and find meaning and hope. This isn't just another dystopic novel, but rather an examination of current society and future possibilities, which is the best kind of science fiction. I look forward to finishing this book! ( )

The first book in a trilogy, this story takes place after the Detonations, when it seems nuclear bombs had been dropped and many were killed and injured. However, there is a Dome, where some fortunate and lucky people survived. The wretches, the people who were outside the Dome when the Detonations hit, all have some horrible disfigurations – a doll’s head for a hand, birds fused to a back, children fused to hips and legs, scars of all kinds. And they survive in the rubble and sooty air that is left. At age 16, the wretches are taken and are either made a soldier, to create an army to revolt against the Dome, or used as human targets. The ones who live in the Dome are pure – no bodily scars, no disfigurations. And now one of the pures has escaped the Dome, something that has never happened before. The pure is searching for his mother, who was said to die in the days after the Detonations, but he is not so sure; something his father said makes him wonder.

I was sucked into this story, and though it is depressing to think of life after nuclear warfare, this was an interesting take on life after a nuclear holocaust. The descriptions of the wretches and their lives after a nuclear holocaust are so descriptive it makes me sure I don’t want to survive if something like that happens. I don’t want birds fused to my back or have to breathe sooty air forever. ( )

One of the darkest post apocalyptic tales ever written, Julianna Baggott takes the reality of a catastrophic destruction of the Earth and turns it into the most devastating catalog of events and characters. It is hard not to become emotionally involved in the lives of these characters, and Julianna's writing is so powerful it will make the reader weep for the sadness that surrounds them. ( )

Pressia Belze is one of the masses who were exposed to the blast of the apocalyptic Detonations. Partridge Willux is a Pure — one of the fortunates who escaped into a massive, protective dome. Years after the Detonations, Pures remain sequestered and safe in the Dome while those outside struggle to survive amidst the rubble and unrest. Each group has become almost mythological to the other — no Pures leave the Dome, no outsiders enter. But when Pressia turns sixteen and flees to avoid mandatory enlistment by the brutal ruling militia, and Partridge escapes through the Dome’s filtration system in search of his lost mother, the two meet. Seeking safety and news of Partridge’s mother, they take to an underground network where danger lurks at every turn. In their flight, they uncover secrets about their pasts and their families, as well as a conspiracy that contradicts everything they thought they knew about the Dome and the Detonations. This story, the first in a planned trilogy, kept me awake and reading long past bedtime. Highly recommended for those who enjoyed Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games. ( )

I got this without knowing it was for teens, but I really enjoyed all the same. It might have taken a while to get off, but the last third was quite good, and I wish I had the other 2 to read right away.
Just one thing: all the fused people were in the most disturbing characters I've read in a long long time... disturbing situations, yes, but disturbing characters, those you feel uncomfortable imagining, these are the ones! ( )