Pure by Julianna Baggott: Review

No one knows who sent the first bomb, but every country with atomic and nuclear bombs sent one out. That doesn’t matter now though, in the wake of a world with no power, poisonous food, ash clouds that cover the sky what is left of humanity has mutated. Humans that lived through the bombs melded with what was around them, not just melted with what they were holding, but the chemicals fused DNA cells together, creating various “things.” Prissia was only six when the bombs went off, and ten years later she is still ashamed of her scars and arm that was fused with the little doll she was carrying the day of the explosions. Now, she is terrified, mutations that are still human enough to function are recruited to the army at sixteen, either to be soldiers, or living moving targets. The day of her sixteenth birthday she runs away, knowing that with only one arm she will most assuredly be used as target practice. While running from a group (multiple people melded together to form one multi-person), she runs into a boy with no scars, no mutations, a Pure.

            Pures come from the Dome. Before the nuclear fallout, the United States had been testing facilities to withstand any forces that might try to harm its citizens; the Dome was one such project. Few made it into the Dome before the first bomb fell, and a week after messages fell from the sky reading “We know you are here, our brothers and sisters…” The Dome knows people are still out there on earth, but will do nothing to help until they believe that they will be safe from all nuclear fallout and the earth has been rejuvenated. No one has ever seen a Pure, because no one from the Dome leaves, why would you? It’s perfect and safe.

            Except maybe it isn’t. Partridge (yeah, its his name, its lame, but you’ll get used to it when reading) is the son of the most influential man in the Dome thinks that something is wrong. He questions the history of the bombings that he is being taught, the genetic coding that all young men are given in hopes of becoming stronger and better able to survive when they return to earth, and the odd suicide of his brother and the fact that his mother never made it into the Dome and died. Except Partridge doesn’t believe that any more. Ten years of eavesdropping on his father and finding old things of his mothers, even though she never made it, push Partridge to try and escape the Dome to find her.

            Prissia and Partridge both on their own, and with different strengths and weakness’ decide that maybe working together they can avoid recruitment and find Partridge’s mother, but they are being watched by the Dome and by the OSR. Their meeting might not have been a chance encounter after all, with the few in power trying to control and manipulate their discoveries what they find will shatter what is left of the already crumbling and mutated Earth.

            This is one of those books that while in a series, I was satisfied with just reading the first. I thought the ending was powerful, without being sappy.  It was a strong, 4-star book, and I really liked how the author fact checked correctly and used information from the original bombings in Japan to bring the futuristic novel to light. I loved the characters, they were so well defined, and intriguing. I love the world that Julianna Baggott created, with mutants and monsters, but it was never Campy or unrealistic.