Pure

Pure, by Julianna Baggott, tells the story of two teens and a shattered world. Pressia survives in the ruins of the nuclear bombing; among burned, fused and mutated beings. Partridge is a Pure, living in the controlled and monitored environment inside the protective dome, along with the others that were lucky enough to be shielded from the bombs. Partridge is convinced his mother is alive somewhere in the ashes outside the dome, and he escapes knowing he may never come back. Pressia is hiding; she now has reached the age where the militia, or OSR, must capture her to either be trained or die.
Pure is well written, with lots of attention to detail. The book starts out a bit slow in the beginning but soon grabs your attention and quickens the pace. Flashbacks of everyday moments such as birthdays, barbeques and movie theaters from the “before” (before the bombing) gave me a new perspective on everyday life taken for granted. Pure gave me an appreciation of what I have and the world I live in. I was a little confused as to the location of where Pure is supposed to take place. I don’t know if this was a conscious decision by the author, but I was just wondering what was supposed to be happening in other places in the world. Pure is not as action-packed as I would have liked; it has more inner and emotional struggle. Pure has a quiet air to it, like the silent desolate world it takes place in. I thought the characters were well developed and lifelike. Overall, I thought Pure was fresh, unpredictable and compelling. Pure is a book that made me think.
I would recommend this book to boys and girls ages 12 and up. Pure is the first book in a planned trilogy and I look forward to reading the next one.

ISBN: 9781455503063
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Pages: 448

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters.
We will, one day, emerge from the dome to join you in peace.
For now. we watch from afar, benevolently.

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 theatres, 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.
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.

I received Pure by Julianna Baggott from Netgalley to review. I really enjoyed reading this dystopian tale, it was well written and well thought out. I loved reading the mixture of perspectives from Lyda & Partridge, inside the Dome and Pressia & Bradwell, outside the Dome. The only part of Pure that I didn't like was the ending, for me it didn't fit in with the rest of the book, it seemed too simple and a bit odd. My favourite character was Pressia because of her resourcefulness and determination. I love the cover of Pure, the blue butterfly surrounded by ash within the Dome implies that whichever side of the Dome the characters are on, they are trapped in one way or another.

Available at Amazon.co.uk.

Overall, I enjoyed the writer’s descriptive writing, it’s very visually written, creating intense imagery. Yet it’s almost overloaded with the set up and descriptions, so it was a little harder to get through. I prefer a page turner.

First of all, I want to point out that, although the main characters are all teenagers, this is not a novel aimed at young adults. While some teens may enjoy it perhaps, the tone and the writing style definitely market towards adults. This change is visible, too, in the romance, which is much darker and less perfect than in most YA dystopias.

Let me discuss that a bit more. Whereas, even in the harshest of dystopias, like The Hunger Games or Battle Royale, people look and act like people, maybe not good ones, but people nonetheless. The violence may be gratuitous and the acts depraved, but, ultimately, the people are, wounds aside, attractive and normal. This is not the case in Pure.

In fact, this is what I liked best about the novel, and this is the part that will stick with me long after I've forgotten most of the plot. The people, the wretches, who were outside when the bombs went off fused to whatever happened to be near them at the time. Obviously, most people did not survive this, but a lot did, but they came out of it looking like something out of a horror movie.

Pressia got off pretty lightly all things considered: scarring on one side of her face and a doll's head fused to one of her hands. El Capitan, one of the heads of the guards that rule the world outside the dome, fused with his brother, Helmud. Mothers who grabbed their children have their kids fused to their legs or breasts. Other people, Dusts, seem to have fused with the ground, the dust, the rocks. (Is it bad that this also makes me think of Sid's toys in Toy Story?)

Now, this does seem somewhat far-fetched to me, but one of the remarkable things about nature is its ability to bounce back. So why not? These fused people (and animals--humans are not the only ones affected by the radiation) are completely terrifying and will haunt me.

What bothered me, though, was the plan that the folks in the Dome had. It doesn't seem like they planned to stay in there for all that long. I thought radiation took a really long time to dissipate...how will they be okay until that time? This wouldn't be Blast from the Past.

All in all, I'm really not entirely sure how I feel about this one. It was a bit of a struggle for me to read. Something about it just didn't mesh with me. Having looked through some reviews on GoodReads, I know I'm not the only one who felt this way. Still, there were some cool things here, and I may read the next book in the series despite my reservations.