28 January, 2012

Pure by Julianna Baggott

Pure (Pure, #1)
Pure by Julianna Baggott.


Information.
Pages: 448
Publication: February 8th 2012/Grand Central Publishing 

Pre-Order it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kennys (Free WW shipping)
ARC supplied: Publishers at NetGalley. 


"We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . . 
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.
When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again."

Review.
When I first began reading my ARC of Pure, I will be honest, I wasn't really feeling it. I found it difficult to connect with anything that was going on. I was also a little bit confused because I felt as if I was just thrown into this devastated world in the Prologue but once I was a few chapters in, everything fell into place for me.


Pressia is in her own right the heroine of the book. She has just turned sixteen, something that I failed to remember because she speaks so maturely. She has seen more than enough of sadness for only being sixteen years. That said, Pressia is courageous and she is a fighter. She does not let anyone take advantage of her yet, she is also kind and helpful and willing to give up her life for the ones she loves. She stands up Bradwell, the third main character who begrudgingly helps to Partridge's mother for as he puts it "his own selfish reasons". So, to me, Pressia is a heroine.


Partridge, however, has only seen what happens in the Dome. He has read about the Outside and although he has not lived through what Pressia has, he has had his own battles to fight. With his mother presumably dead, a brother who has committed suicide and an absentee father, Partridge is lonely. I liked Partridge. Even if he was a little naive, he was smart enough to know that he would not survive on the Outside by himself. I enjoyed reading Pressia's and Partridge's interactions, as if they understood each other on another level.


The book is told in an omnipresent manner but from different characters points of view. This is included El Capitan, a soldier whose brother is fused to his back and who seems to be fighting his inner demons. There is also Lydia, a potential ally/love interest who is in the Dome. I liked reading about where Lydia was in the Dome. I thought she was a loyal and brave friend to Partridge. 


Baggott is very good at one thing and that is tying up plots at the end. The book ended neatly, with many of the subplots intertwining with the main plot. If you read the book closely, they are clues to the surprises that emerge throughout the book. This, in my opinion, is a sign of truly good writing, to be able intermingle plots in a way that does not seem out of the blue for the reader.  

Although the concept of Domes in dystopian fiction isn't anything new, it is the world that she creates outside the Dome that is so engrossing. Baggott has created a sinister and cruel place  even border-lining on creepy where everyone carries a scar from the detonations. People are fused with each other as well as solid objects. I think it is the descriptions that Baggott writes about these people is what up the creepy factor of the book. Sometimes I had trouble imagining the creatures which is new for me, so I would love to see Pure turned into a movie or a graphic novel to see how other people imagined the Outside world.



Pure is a book of survival and hope set in a haunting world which will have you captivated page after page.


Rating: 4/5.

1 comment:

  1. "@BookFilledBlog much appreciated! thank you." - Author of Pure, Julianna Baggott.

    ReplyDelete