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outoftheblue14's review against another edition
5.0
I'm always in the mood for some dystopian YA. Which is a good thing, considering that YA dystopias are popping up like mushrooms all over the place. Too bad practically all of them are series, so it takes at least a couple of years to see them finished. Here I bring you Pure, thefirst novel in a new YA dystopian series.
We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, once day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar.
This is the message spread after the Detonations destroyed almost everything. While people struggle to survive in a world composed mainly of rubble and toxic waste, a few privileged who haven't been affected by the Detonations live comfortably in the safety of the Dome. People outside of the Dome are called "wretches", while those in the Dome are known as Pure.
Pressia Belze is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her grandfather after the death of her parents in the Detonations. Like most of the people outside of the Dome, when the explosions happened her body fused with what she was holding, and a doll's head now replaces one of her fists. After turning sixteen, she needs to escape and hide from OSR, a militia who recruits all sixteen-year-olds to either be trained as soldiers or, for those not strong enough, to serve as living targets. OSR, which originally stood for Operation Search and Rescue but now is the acronym for Operation Sacred Revolution, is planning a rebellion to take over the Dome.
Partridge, a Pure boy and the son of an important officer in the Dome government, is finishing his training at the Academy, but isn't happy. His brother is dead and his mother never made it into the Dome. When a casual slip from his father suggests that his mother might still be alive out there, he escapes from the Dome to find her.
I found this book interesting and well.written. I was particularly impressed by the detail in which the author described the damage to the bodies of the "wretches" - people with objects lodged in their bodies, people fused together, people fused with rocks or animals, Dusts, Beasts. It was horrifying and yet compelling.
The events in this book seemed to exist on a whole different level than the story itself, almost as if things really existed. I found the world-building very accurate and detailed. Lenore of Presenting Lenore featured this book in one of her dystopian themed months and gave it an award for big twists. Yeah, there are a couple big ones, but I'd say the strongest point of this book is descriptions more than anything else.
This is the first book in a trilogy, but the ending is neat and not too much of a cliffhanger. Yes, one wonders what will happen next, and I must say I have no idea - I can't make any predictions. Still, it's a good place to end a book, not like some other series where the ending is very abrupt, almost as if it were only one book which had to be cut somewhere.
I'd recommend this book to dystopian fans. The dystopian elements are prevalent here, so if you don't like the genre, there's not much else in this book.
Cover attraction: I love books with butterflies on their cover. The dark background is quite striking in contract to the blue wings of the butterfly. It conveys the idea that there is still life and hope even if the world was almost destroyed. I also found two other covers under a different publisher's name - Grand Central for the butterfly cover, Headline Book Publishing for the other two. They're simpler: one is totally black, the other completely white. I'm not sure if they were meant to be released at the same time, two versions of the same book (as in John Green's Paper Towns). They're probably giving the idea of society divided among wretches (black) and Pures (white), and the contrast between the Pure title and the black cover might be ironic. I like the fond in these two covers, but if I found them in a store, I'd pick up the butterfly cover and not the other two.
We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, once day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar.
This is the message spread after the Detonations destroyed almost everything. While people struggle to survive in a world composed mainly of rubble and toxic waste, a few privileged who haven't been affected by the Detonations live comfortably in the safety of the Dome. People outside of the Dome are called "wretches", while those in the Dome are known as Pure.
Pressia Belze is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her grandfather after the death of her parents in the Detonations. Like most of the people outside of the Dome, when the explosions happened her body fused with what she was holding, and a doll's head now replaces one of her fists. After turning sixteen, she needs to escape and hide from OSR, a militia who recruits all sixteen-year-olds to either be trained as soldiers or, for those not strong enough, to serve as living targets. OSR, which originally stood for Operation Search and Rescue but now is the acronym for Operation Sacred Revolution, is planning a rebellion to take over the Dome.
Partridge, a Pure boy and the son of an important officer in the Dome government, is finishing his training at the Academy, but isn't happy. His brother is dead and his mother never made it into the Dome. When a casual slip from his father suggests that his mother might still be alive out there, he escapes from the Dome to find her.
I found this book interesting and well.written. I was particularly impressed by the detail in which the author described the damage to the bodies of the "wretches" - people with objects lodged in their bodies, people fused together, people fused with rocks or animals, Dusts, Beasts. It was horrifying and yet compelling.
The events in this book seemed to exist on a whole different level than the story itself, almost as if things really existed. I found the world-building very accurate and detailed. Lenore of Presenting Lenore featured this book in one of her dystopian themed months and gave it an award for big twists. Yeah, there are a couple big ones, but I'd say the strongest point of this book is descriptions more than anything else.
This is the first book in a trilogy, but the ending is neat and not too much of a cliffhanger. Yes, one wonders what will happen next, and I must say I have no idea - I can't make any predictions. Still, it's a good place to end a book, not like some other series where the ending is very abrupt, almost as if it were only one book which had to be cut somewhere.
I'd recommend this book to dystopian fans. The dystopian elements are prevalent here, so if you don't like the genre, there's not much else in this book.
Cover attraction: I love books with butterflies on their cover. The dark background is quite striking in contract to the blue wings of the butterfly. It conveys the idea that there is still life and hope even if the world was almost destroyed. I also found two other covers under a different publisher's name - Grand Central for the butterfly cover, Headline Book Publishing for the other two. They're simpler: one is totally black, the other completely white. I'm not sure if they were meant to be released at the same time, two versions of the same book (as in John Green's Paper Towns). They're probably giving the idea of society divided among wretches (black) and Pures (white), and the contrast between the Pure title and the black cover might be ironic. I like the fond in these two covers, but if I found them in a store, I'd pick up the butterfly cover and not the other two.
tinky47's review against another edition
4.0
Far into the future the world is changed by Detonations. The explosions that wrecked the atmosphere, also fused organic beings to each other, the inanimate objects, and sometimes the earth itself. The only safe place to live is in The Dome, where the Pure live.
Partridge is a young man who grew up under the shadow of his father, the man who created the Dome. He is lonely and misses his brother, lost to suicide and mother, lost in the Detonations trying to collect more people to enter the dome. Healthy and
safe, Partridge feels trapped by the structure of the Dome and his many unanswered questions. He plans a dangerous escape when he finds a clue that hints at his mother's survival in the world outside of the Dome.
The streets are a dangerous place for Pressia, who lives with her grandfather in the rubble of his old barbershop. Along with her neighbors, she scavenges for food and hides from the militia that collect sixteen year-olds for battle. When she has to escape her home to avoid capture, she inadvertently saves Partridge from capture and the two begin a cautious friendship in a dangerous adventure.
This novel fits perfectly in the genre of the dystopian teen fiction. I enjoyed the fast pace, efforts at embedding scientific tidbits, and interesting plot twists of the novel. It is a first in a series, but can stand well on it's own. The light romance is predictable and a good motivation for reluctant sci-fi readers.
4 out of 5 stars
Partridge is a young man who grew up under the shadow of his father, the man who created the Dome. He is lonely and misses his brother, lost to suicide and mother, lost in the Detonations trying to collect more people to enter the dome. Healthy and
safe, Partridge feels trapped by the structure of the Dome and his many unanswered questions. He plans a dangerous escape when he finds a clue that hints at his mother's survival in the world outside of the Dome.
The streets are a dangerous place for Pressia, who lives with her grandfather in the rubble of his old barbershop. Along with her neighbors, she scavenges for food and hides from the militia that collect sixteen year-olds for battle. When she has to escape her home to avoid capture, she inadvertently saves Partridge from capture and the two begin a cautious friendship in a dangerous adventure.
This novel fits perfectly in the genre of the dystopian teen fiction. I enjoyed the fast pace, efforts at embedding scientific tidbits, and interesting plot twists of the novel. It is a first in a series, but can stand well on it's own. The light romance is predictable and a good motivation for reluctant sci-fi readers.
4 out of 5 stars
lizzyzzil's review against another edition
2.0
great plot and super interesting universe, but i felt it tried too hard to be creepy or horrific and it would have been creepier and more horrifying if the attempt wasn't so blatant... if that makes sense. I enjoyed it and read quickly, and it picked up a lot at the end so I was thinking about trying the rest of the series, but ultimately I won't read any more in this series.
lyntwhit's review against another edition
Great book! Zipped through it in a couple of days. Would recommend. Of course with The Hunger Games being so of the moment, I did at times compare and contrast Pure to other dystopian fiction like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Aftertime, etc. I found the whole aspect of the people being joined to inanimate and living objects interesting and scary. That was something I hadn't come across before. The dynamic with Partridge and his father reminded me of The Uglies series. Also the "caste" system of the "pures" vs. "wretches" reminded me of The Uglies series as well.
vanikr's review against another edition
4.0
Ich finde Memento ist ein wirklih richtig tolles Buch. Die Geschichte ist unglaublich spannend. Es finde es schon eklig, das Menschen mit anderen Menschen oder Gegenständen verbunden sind, aber irgendwie macht es das auch spannend.
Und besonders gut finde ich das alles zusammenhängt, man denkt anfangs alles ist zufällig verlaufen, aber am Ende erfährt man dann alles war genauso von Patridges Vater geplannt.
Auch diese zwei parallelen Liebesgeschichten sind einfach klasse, ich würde unglaublich gerne den zweiten Teil lesen.
Und besonders gut finde ich das alles zusammenhängt, man denkt anfangs alles ist zufällig verlaufen, aber am Ende erfährt man dann alles war genauso von Patridges Vater geplannt.
Auch diese zwei parallelen Liebesgeschichten sind einfach klasse, ich würde unglaublich gerne den zweiten Teil lesen.
yodamom's review against another edition
4.0
After the apocalypse the world is divided, the Pure's that live in the Dome untainted by the detonations. Then there are the Wretches. Their bodies fused to objects that were near them during the blast, some unrecognizable as even once being human. The animals, the dust and the plants, everything has been effected.
Prissia a wretch had her hand fused to her doll she was holding. Where her hand used to be has doll eyes that click shut, persed lips. She can feel the small ridges of her knuckles and fingers where they fused. She is raised by her Grandfather who has a horrendous fan forever lodged in his throat. She is about to turn 16 an age where you get taken away.
Partridge, is a Pure the son of one of the leaders of the Dome.Eh has been isolated and lonely. The boys in the dDome undergo a coding treatment to make them better. For some reason his coding is not going as it should. His mother gave him something before the blast that made some of the coding not work. After his brother kills himself and his father is angry about the coding not working he makes a drastic decision. He leaves the Dome, escapes.
His adventure into the world is a terrible nightmare, and yet there is beauty. The effects of the blast and the nanotechnology in the bombs has helped regenerate humans into grotesque beings. His survival is unlikely until he meets Prissia and her friends and discover a history that will change everything they believed.
Fascinating details and world development. I can not compare this to any book I've read. It was so completely unique in the details they almost overwhelmed the story. It is a dark world and a dark story, not happy fairy tales here, and yet I could not put it down. I will always remember parts of this story.
Prissia a wretch had her hand fused to her doll she was holding. Where her hand used to be has doll eyes that click shut, persed lips. She can feel the small ridges of her knuckles and fingers where they fused. She is raised by her Grandfather who has a horrendous fan forever lodged in his throat. She is about to turn 16 an age where you get taken away.
Partridge, is a Pure the son of one of the leaders of the Dome.Eh has been isolated and lonely. The boys in the dDome undergo a coding treatment to make them better. For some reason his coding is not going as it should. His mother gave him something before the blast that made some of the coding not work. After his brother kills himself and his father is angry about the coding not working he makes a drastic decision. He leaves the Dome, escapes.
His adventure into the world is a terrible nightmare, and yet there is beauty. The effects of the blast and the nanotechnology in the bombs has helped regenerate humans into grotesque beings. His survival is unlikely until he meets Prissia and her friends and discover a history that will change everything they believed.
Fascinating details and world development. I can not compare this to any book I've read. It was so completely unique in the details they almost overwhelmed the story. It is a dark world and a dark story, not happy fairy tales here, and yet I could not put it down. I will always remember parts of this story.
alyssaindira's review against another edition
3.0
Hey guys, so I just finished reading Pure by Julianna Baggott, and...*shudders*. Wait, I am getting ahead of myself. Okay. so at first, from the book jacket is kinda sounded like the novel Under the Never Sky, where the 2 leading characters are from extremely different worlds, one technological advances, the other stuck in cave man era. Then something happens and they collide and yeah. But it totally wasnt like that at all. Which was good and bad. However, I've only been truly rattled, to say the least, by one book. Pure has joined that league. I must give props to the author for depicting the novel so thoroughly that the very disturbing images(in my opinion) are painted vividly in one's mind. *Shudders*. I think I can say it was one of the most creepiest dystopian/ apocalyptic novels I've encountered. Mostly due to the fact of fused people. *Cringes* Even though in the first chapter I wasnt entirely sure what the author meant when she stated that Pressia and her doll had become one. But I soon found out. Then more examples started to pop up. That is when the book and my mind entered a whole new level of...i just simply cannot describe how I felt. I was just entirely grossed out. And mostly, I can handle a lot of imagery in novels. Guess Pure just really tested my threshold. I am typing a few examples so you guys can try to experience my mind set.
"Three women step out-all fused-a tangle of cloth hiding their engorged middle. Parts of each face seem to be shiny and stiff as if fused with plastic. Groupies, thats what theyre called. One of the women has sloped shoulders, a curved spine. There are so many arms, same pale, some freckled, some dark."
" SHe was sure she saw the small quick wings of birds-rumpled gray feathers, a quick glimpse of a pair of small orange claws tucked up under a downy belly-lodged there in his back"
"As the crowd moves closer, Partridge sees that the children are not just with their mothers. They're attached. The first woman they saw walks with an uneven gait. The child who'd seemed to be holding onto her leg is actually fused there. Legless, the boy has only one arm, and his torso and head protrude from her upper thigh. Another woman has eyes peering out from her bulbous baby head that sits like a goiter on her neck"
"Pressia follows our good mother's gaze and there she sees the gauzy material of the shirt draw in and pull in and puff out-all that is left of her child, just an infant, the purpled lips, the dark mouth, embedded in her upper arm, still alive, breathing."
And those are just a few! The people in this book have been fused with anything you can think of. Rocks, sand, metal, animals, weapons, etc. And it's all the governments fault. The story said that an atomic bomb obliterated most of the country, mostly because the government wanted to wipe out most of the population and start fresh. Start clean. Pure. Yeah, I wouldnt put it past them. Anyway, moving on to the story, another thing I disliked was that the battle scenes were just too chaotic, so hyped up and frenzied that I couldnt understand half of what was going on. All in all, I liked the general idea of the book, the beginning storyline, but then it just seemed to go off in some crazed tangent and I had a hard time keeping up. Probably wont read the second book Fuse, or the third Burn.
"Three women step out-all fused-a tangle of cloth hiding their engorged middle. Parts of each face seem to be shiny and stiff as if fused with plastic. Groupies, thats what theyre called. One of the women has sloped shoulders, a curved spine. There are so many arms, same pale, some freckled, some dark."
" SHe was sure she saw the small quick wings of birds-rumpled gray feathers, a quick glimpse of a pair of small orange claws tucked up under a downy belly-lodged there in his back"
"As the crowd moves closer, Partridge sees that the children are not just with their mothers. They're attached. The first woman they saw walks with an uneven gait. The child who'd seemed to be holding onto her leg is actually fused there. Legless, the boy has only one arm, and his torso and head protrude from her upper thigh. Another woman has eyes peering out from her bulbous baby head that sits like a goiter on her neck"
"Pressia follows our good mother's gaze and there she sees the gauzy material of the shirt draw in and pull in and puff out-all that is left of her child, just an infant, the purpled lips, the dark mouth, embedded in her upper arm, still alive, breathing."
And those are just a few! The people in this book have been fused with anything you can think of. Rocks, sand, metal, animals, weapons, etc. And it's all the governments fault. The story said that an atomic bomb obliterated most of the country, mostly because the government wanted to wipe out most of the population and start fresh. Start clean. Pure. Yeah, I wouldnt put it past them. Anyway, moving on to the story, another thing I disliked was that the battle scenes were just too chaotic, so hyped up and frenzied that I couldnt understand half of what was going on. All in all, I liked the general idea of the book, the beginning storyline, but then it just seemed to go off in some crazed tangent and I had a hard time keeping up. Probably wont read the second book Fuse, or the third Burn.
celjla212's review against another edition
4.0
The Earth has been laid to waste by a nuclear event. The only place that remains whole and pristine is the Dome, a controlled environment where the lucky got to stay.
Nine years after the Detonations, Pressia Belze lives out in the ruined land, where survivors of the Detonations are forever fused to whatever they happened to be near at the time of the explosions--glass, metal, even other people. Pressia has one hand fused with a doll's head. She lives with her grandfather, who is getting sicker by the day. The worst thing of all is that Pressia knows it's only a matter of time before she has to leave him all alone. It's two weeks before her sixteenth birthday--at which time she will be forced to join the OSR, a sort of guerilla regime intent on taking down the Dome.
In a completely opposite world, Partridge Willux lives inside the Dome, and feels like a constant disappointment to his father--the man who designed the Dome. Those who live inside the dome are called Pures. Partridge is a student at the Academy, when one day he takes a field trip and finds out that the mother he believed died in the Detonations may be alive on the outside. So he decides he must escape. When Pressia and Partridge's worlds collide, they bond together and come to discover truths that will turn both of their worlds upside down.
I really liked this book a lot. The world the author created is so despondent, you can feel it coming through the pages of the book. The characters are likable and you can identify with their struggles. I especially liked Partridge, because even though he had no idea what he was looking for or even where to begin his search, he never faltered in the fact that he needed to go out there and find it. Any other Pure who had been in the safety of the Dome for the past nine years would have been terrified to leave it, but not Partridge.
That's not to say that I didn't have a couple of problems with this book. First of all, the author is asking you to suspend your disbelief by quite a bit. It's hard to believe that people could be fused with other people. or even animals, and both being would still be able to live. This takes a bit of imagination, but the rest of the book was so good that I got used to the idea after a bit. Secondly, the author writes in the present tense, which was not quite noticeable at first. I could tell as I was reading that something was different, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. One I saw what it was though, it didn't bother me too much--it was just a different style than what I am used to.
Julianna Baggott has a graceful, descriptive writing style, and really knows how to give a good sense of urgency and danger. The first bit of the book was a bit slow, but once it picked up, it never let me go.
Pure is a great addition to the dystopian genre, and I cannot wait to see what happens to Pressia and Partridge in the next book.
Nine years after the Detonations, Pressia Belze lives out in the ruined land, where survivors of the Detonations are forever fused to whatever they happened to be near at the time of the explosions--glass, metal, even other people. Pressia has one hand fused with a doll's head. She lives with her grandfather, who is getting sicker by the day. The worst thing of all is that Pressia knows it's only a matter of time before she has to leave him all alone. It's two weeks before her sixteenth birthday--at which time she will be forced to join the OSR, a sort of guerilla regime intent on taking down the Dome.
In a completely opposite world, Partridge Willux lives inside the Dome, and feels like a constant disappointment to his father--the man who designed the Dome. Those who live inside the dome are called Pures. Partridge is a student at the Academy, when one day he takes a field trip and finds out that the mother he believed died in the Detonations may be alive on the outside. So he decides he must escape. When Pressia and Partridge's worlds collide, they bond together and come to discover truths that will turn both of their worlds upside down.
I really liked this book a lot. The world the author created is so despondent, you can feel it coming through the pages of the book. The characters are likable and you can identify with their struggles. I especially liked Partridge, because even though he had no idea what he was looking for or even where to begin his search, he never faltered in the fact that he needed to go out there and find it. Any other Pure who had been in the safety of the Dome for the past nine years would have been terrified to leave it, but not Partridge.
That's not to say that I didn't have a couple of problems with this book. First of all, the author is asking you to suspend your disbelief by quite a bit. It's hard to believe that people could be fused with other people. or even animals, and both being would still be able to live. This takes a bit of imagination, but the rest of the book was so good that I got used to the idea after a bit. Secondly, the author writes in the present tense, which was not quite noticeable at first. I could tell as I was reading that something was different, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. One I saw what it was though, it didn't bother me too much--it was just a different style than what I am used to.
Julianna Baggott has a graceful, descriptive writing style, and really knows how to give a good sense of urgency and danger. The first bit of the book was a bit slow, but once it picked up, it never let me go.
Pure is a great addition to the dystopian genre, and I cannot wait to see what happens to Pressia and Partridge in the next book.
jenpost78's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this story. It took me a bit to get past some of the outrageous mutations described, but by the end of the story they seemed more believable for this apocalyptic future.