Showing posts with label Dan Wells. Show all posts

October 25, 2017

Review: Isolation by Dan Wells

Isolation (Partials #0.5)
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: August 28, 2012
Pages: 75
Format: Ebook/Library

Two decades before the events of Partials, the world was locked in a different battle for survival: a global war for the last remaining oil reserves on the planet. It was for the Isolation War that the American government contracted the ParaGen Corporation to manufacture the Partials—our last hope in reclaiming energy independence from China. And it was on these fields of battle that the seeds of humanity's eventual destruction were sown.

Isolation takes us back to the front lines of this war, a time when mankind's ambition far outstripped its foresight. Heron, a newly trained Partial soldier who specializes in infiltration, is sent on a mission deep behind enemy lines. What she discovers there has far-reaching implications—not only for the Isolation War, but for Partials and humans alike long after this war is over.

A powerful take of our world on the brink, Isolation gives readers a glimpse into the history from which Partials was born—as well as clues to where the Partials Sequence is heading next.

Review: I thought this was a great little short story. I thought it was incredibly interesting finally getting a first hand look at how the partials were "born" per se. We got to see how they learned to live outside the vat much like a baby learns to live outside the womb. I enjoyed finally knowing how each group was trained differently than the others. We got to see the Theta's first hand from Herons view. It was intense the training they went through. I've been in college a few years now and I haven't even taken classes as intense as those described were. I also found it awful how the humans treated the Partials. Such as Herons trainer trying to have his way with her just because she was supposed to obey her human superiors no matter what. That was incredibly wrong and I'm glad Heron stood up for herself. 

I also enjoyed finally getting to read about the Isolation War first hand. We've heard so much mention of it in the series, but never a lot of detail. We got to see Heron infiltrate the Chinese. We got to see strength and cowardice in the Chinese ranks. We also got to see how the handlers for the spy's refused to ever give full information on what to do and when to do it. Heron always felt like they were never giving her complete information. And she trusted her gut and called the handlers on it. Thanks to her not only were a lot of partials saved from being sacrificed but I can also see where the intense distaste of humans came from for the partials. 

5 Stars!
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October 21, 2017

Stacking The Shelves [#72]/Sunday Post [#3]/Mailbox Monday [#3]

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality as a way to share all the books we got during the week!

The Sunday Post is hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. Its a weekly post to showcase what books you got, recap the week, and talk about what will be coming up this week on the blog!

Mailbox Monday is hosted on its own site. It is there to show off the books acquired during the week!

Only one book this week. Another ebook from the library. 
Isolation (Partials #0.5) by Dan Wells (Goodreads)

I finished Ruins this week and realized I still hadn't read the short story yet. So I checked it out from my library!

Weekly Recap:


This week outside of the blog, me and my fiance finally decided on our color scheme for our wedding. Its going to be Teal & Black. Inspiration for it came from our favorite hockey teams colors (the San Jose Sharks). 

Also, we went to the pumpkin patch this week! Our daughter is so excited we finally picked pumpkins. This upcoming week we get to carve them (I'll post pics on next weeks StS). 

Upcoming:
Review of Isolation by Dan Wells
Review of Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor
Possibly still The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe. I've got started on it, just not reading huge chunks at a time. I do have a review started for it though! :D 
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October 17, 2017

Review: Ruins by Dan Wells

Ruins (Partials #3)
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: March 11, 2014
Pages: 464
Format: Ebook/Library

Kira, Samm, and Marcus fight to prevent a final war between Partials and humans in the gripping final installment in the Partials Sequence, a series that combines the thrilling action of The Hunger Games with the provocative themes of Blade Runner and The Stand.

 There is no avoiding it—the war to decide the fate of both humans and Partials is at hand. Both sides hold in their possession a weapon that could destroy the other, and Kira Walker has precious little time to prevent that from happening. She has one chance to save both species and the world with them, but it will only come at great personal cost.





*Spoiler Alert, Don't read if you don't want the book spoiled for you!*

Review: Once I started reading this, I couldn't put it down. I was glued to the book, needing to know how everything ended. This is definitely one of the more satisfying end books I've read. I feel like most of the story was wrapped up nicely, but we were still left with a few things to think about regarding how their future plays out. The one thing I definitely keep pondering is where they are going to end up making their new home. 

A lot of interesting things happened in Ruins. It all starts after Kira realizes she is not the cure. She herself starts researching what she knows and comes to realize what the cure for both RM and the Expiration Date is, coexistence of the humans and partials. She leaves to find allies, those who would be willing to live in this coexisting world. Unfortunately, her only lead, the Ivies, is being run by a mysterious figure called "The Blood-Man," and have a different idea of how the world is going to be saved. The Blood-Man is killing partials and humans for samples, to genetically build a new race. When Kira finally catches up to him, she finds out the delusional Blood Man is none other than her father, Armin Dhurvasula. It is then Kira finds out she was not made with the cure in mind, instead, she found out she is one of the newest partials, built by her father for the purpose of his delusional new world. She is a perfect combination of human and partial coded together. He wants to create yet another species modeled from her. Yeah, because creating the partials in the first place seemed to work so well for everyone and everything. This guy does not know when to stop does he??? What was just a race to save humans from RM and the partials from expiration turns out to be a race to save everyone from Armin's demented new world idea.

During this time, Samm and Heron, still in Denver, unplug and wake up the partials Vale was holding captive for the RM cure. Once they all wake up, they realize and reveal they are past their expiration date. Impossible. A new human baby is then born in the same hospital, without the symptoms of RM. It is then that Samm also realizes that the cure for RM and expiration is coexisting with each other. He eventually decided he needs to head back to East Meadow, to Kira, to tell her and help her. He also finally gets the courage to tell Kira how he feels about her. So proud of him!

While all this is happening, Delarosa is trying to get a bomb into White Plains to kill as many partials as she can, blaming them for everything that's happened, not even willing to give them any type of chance. Delarosa is only out for revenge, not caring about the human life she could kill along with the partials. This leads to Haru and his men discretely evacuating as many people as they can from East Meadow to get them far away from the bombs potential fallout radius. If everyone stayed there, they could all die from the fallout.

Kira's adopted sisters also deal with a lot. Isolde has the first human/partial hybrid child. What she doesn't realize, is she carried a partial killing gene in her, and having a child with a human, activated it in her babies genes. Unfortunately, this effects her child as he is half partial. :( Her child ends up infecting and killing any partial they encounter, and is he later termed a bio-weapon. Unfortunately, the baby dies as well from this. This makes Ariel, her other sister incredibly angry with Nandita for helping create them and the weapon and ultimately tries to kill her. She seems to have a change of heart and the last minute though.

In the end, the partial and human leaders decide to give coexisting a chance, after having witnessed the cure happening, and hearing the delusional babbling of Armin's "new world" ideas. And you know what, Armin got exactly what he deserved in the end. What was surprising was who sacrificed themselves for the greater good.

I enjoyed at the very end, when Kira was reunited with Nandita and her partial sisters. Despite everything they all went through, they were each others family. And it was good to see all of them realize that and come back together. The only thing I wished for the end was to see where they all go and make their new home.

5 Stars!
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October 14, 2017

Stacking The Shelves [#71]/Sunday Post [#2]/Mailbox Monday [#2]

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality as a way to share all the books we got during the week!

The Sunday Post is hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. Its a weekly post to showcase what books you got, recap the week, and talk about what will be coming up this week on the blog!

Mailbox Monday is hosted on its own site. It is there to show off the books acquired during the week!

Just 2 books this week. Ebooks from my library. Pictures of them on my kindle.

Walk on Earth a Stranger (Gold Seer Trilogy #1) by Rae Carson (Goodreads)

Ruins (Partials #3) by Dan Wells (Goodreads)

Weekly Recap: 
Posts:

Reviews:

This past week I decided to get in on the 2017 dystopia reading challenge. If you were following me before I took a break, you'll know I'm a huge fan of dystopian books! Stop by and see what I plan on reading. Speaking of dystopian books, I reviewed Fuse! I quite enjoyed it, feel free to check out my review to see more details! 

Upcoming:
I still would like to reread and review The Lives We Lost, but I'm struggling a little bit to get back into the story. I'm gonna keep at it though. I definitely think I'll be diving into Ruins this week. I've been eager to see how things play out for this series! 

Review of Ruins (Partials #3) by Dan Wells
Review of The Lives We Lost (Fallen World #2) by Megan Crewe (Depending on how getting back into the book goes)
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November 03, 2015

Review: Fragments by Dan Wells

Fragments (Partials #2)
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: February 26, 2013
Pages: 576
Format: Hardcover/Library

Kira Walker has found the cure for RM, but the battle for the survival of humans and Partials is just beginning. Kira has left East Meadow in a desperate search for clues to who she is. That the Partials themselves hold the cure for RM in their blood cannot be a coincidence—it must be part of a larger plan, a plan that involves Kira, a plan that could save both races. Her companions are Afa Demoux, an unhinged drifter and former employee of ParaGen, and Samm and Heron, the Partials who betrayed her and saved her life, the only ones who know her secret. But can she trust them?

Meanwhile, back on Long Island, what’s left of humanity is gearing up for war with the Partials, and Marcus knows his only hope is to delay them until Kira returns. But Kira’s journey will take her deep into the overgrown wasteland of postapocalyptic America, and Kira and Marcus both will discover that their greatest enemy may be one they didn’t even know existed.

The second installment in the pulse-pounding Partials saga is the story of the eleventh hour of humanity’s time on Earth, a journey deep into places unknown to discover the means—and even more important, a reason—for our survival.


Review: Overall, I enjoyed Fragments. We got a great amount of character and story development and I quite enjoyed it. Fragments took us all over. With Kira we started out in New York, then progressively made our way to Chicago and then all the way to Denver. Marcus also went on a smaller trip of his own in areas of New York and New Jersey close to the settlement. It was quite enjoyable reading about pretty much everywhere but East Meadow. I really enjoyed reading about Kira and Samm's journey though. We got to see what the most of the rest of the US looks like after the Partials war. We came across cities halfway underwater, we came across some that were completely underwater, making their journey harder. We also saw the destruction caused by the war with how many things were broken or completely gone. They also went through the toxic wasteland which that in of itself is a serious feat, though not everyone who started the journey with them made it through there. We hear about acid rain but it isn't really experienced, Kira and her companions had to cross hundreds of miles that could potentially bring down acid rain on them and hurting them, not to mention the fairly toxic air as well. I was very surprised though that when they got to Denver finally they end up finding a settlement with more humans, and at that, children, that somehow they've had a cure for RM since the beginning almost.

I really enjoyed Kira's character development. We found out at the end of Partials that Kira herself is a type of Partial. We see her become interested in finding out more about herself and going to great lengths to do it. But we also see her struggling to deal with the fact that she is a partial instead of a human. She is constantly thinking of herself as a human and talking to the others as so. They have to constantly remind her that she herself is a partial, even though they don't know what type. Eventually though she finally starts to see herself as a partial. We find out a lot about her. We find out that one of the developers of the partials is her "father," though we still have no word on whether he's alive still or not. We also find out about Nandita and why she disappears and how she fits into the picture with the partials and Kira. The most important thing though, is that we finally figure out what kind of partial Kira is and how she fits into the big picture. And I was a bit surprised as to how big of a role she ends up playing. I also liked how Kira and Samm's relationship developed. They went from being very distant to very close. 

I also enjoyed reading about Marcus trying to form an alliance with some of the other partial factions to band against Morgans. So far they haven't really been able to get anywhere with this but it is a brilliant idea if he can get some factions that haven't been destroyed or joined with Morgans on his side. 

The one thing I constantly hated throughout this book was Heron. She was a constant downer and just filled with negativity. I seriously wished she never went on the journey from the beginning. I also suspected she wasn't exactly going to be loyal to Kira and Samm and I was right. I just really despise Heron. 

4 1/2 Stars

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October 26, 2013

Stacking The Shelves [#63]

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews as a way to share all the books we got during the week!

Won:
Bought:
Bought for Kindle:
  • The First Star To Fall (For Darkness Shows The Stars #1.5) by Diana Peterfreund (Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes & Noble)
NetGalley:
Thank you Harlequin & Egmont USA!!!

Library:
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February 26, 2013

Review: Partials by Dan Wells

Partials (Partials #1)
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: February 28, 2012
Pages: 468
Source: Hardcover/Library

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.


Review: I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought I would. I don't know why but I was hesitant to read this book, but it was calling to me to finally read it so I gave it a shot. So glad I did. This book was just awesome! I really wanna talk about Kira first. So here goes. I really liked her. I thought she was a strong main character! She is only what? 16. She's had to deal with a lot for a 16 year old and that showed in how strong of a character she was. She's lost her parents due to RM when she was 5, seen infants die because RM gets them either within hours or days of being born since there's no cure and she's dealt with all these rules the Senate has brought down upon her (some of which a 16 year old should not have to deal with.) I really loved though that she was so dedicated to saving humanity, even if it meant her going against the law pretty much to do it. And then on top of that, she went into enemy territory and brought an enemy back alive. That girl has guts. I definitely knew she was right studying a Partial to try and cure RM but I had no clue how exactly it would help cure it. Also, I really don't have an opinion on hers and Marcus's relationship, but I definitely do think they care about each other a lot. 

I thought the whole conflict with the Senate and The Voice was whack! The Senate was deadset on controlling people and The Voice was deadset on getting them to stop it. All The Voice wanted was for The Senate to repeal the Hope Act (the law mandating that girls a certain age or older have to get pregnant). I don't see why that was such a big deal when it was painfully obvious that the Hope Act wasn't working. Making more people have babies that aren't gonna be immune to RM isn't gonna help. The Senate was just determined to keep tight grip on everyone. I really wasn't a fan of The Senate. I honestly wanted them to fall. 

The Partials. Man, I totally wasn't expecting the news about their species that was revealed. Or that they were on a mission to East Meadow when Kira and her group attacked. I was surprised also with how they were built and how they could interact with each other. It was interesting to say the least. I wasn't surprised however that we found out that the Partials didn't release RM on the humans. I felt like that would have been to simple. I definitely think there's something bigger lurking out there.  

Now, Kira's little secret that she herself, and we readers found out at the end of the book. I wish I could say it was surprising, but it wasn't. I had this suspicion for a while reading the book that we were gonna find that out about her. I definitely cant wait to read Fragments to see where Kira's and the Partials stories go next!!!

4 1/2 Stars!
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June 29, 2012

More Cover Reveals (So Many Lately)

No blurb yet. I haven't read this series but I own the first one and I really wanna get to it soon. I love this cover. Out of the three covers I love this one the best. I love the blue so much on this! I think it looks fantastic! A Touch Menacing's expected publication is March 5, 2013!

AHHHHH!!!!! I'm like seriously beyond excited for Requiem. I love love loved Delirium & Pandemonium and after the way Pandemonium ended I need this like ASAP!!! I need Lena to end up with Alex! I will be so unhappy (and there will be lots of book throwing) if she doesn't. And I really need to see whats gonna happen in general! EEEPPPP! Lol. Requiem's expected publication is also March 5, 2013!

 No blurb yet. I do like this cover. I think it goes well with Partials. I havent read Partials yet but I know a few of you have and liked it so I'll have to get on that soon. Fragments expected publication is February 26, 2013!

What are your thoughts on the covers? Let me know in the comments!
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February 01, 2012

Waiting On Wednesday [#24]

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.

Partials (Partials #1)
Author: Dan Wells
Expected Publication: February 28, 2012 

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.

This book just sounds really good. Plain and simple! Lol. But seriously doesn't it sound good? I mean I was pulled in just by the sentence on the cover alone. "The only hope for humanity isn't human." As soon as I read that I knew I'd have to check out the book and most likely add it to my TBR. :)

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