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A review by alyssaindira
Pure by Julianna Baggott
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.