***Review*** Pure by Julianna Baggott

Pure by Julianna Baggott

 

Released : 8th February 2012

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Series :Yes #1 in the Pure series

Format :Kindle

Source : Digital ARC Netgalley

Buy at : Amazon | Amazon UK |Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

Author Site: Julianna Baggott

 

Goodreads Synopsis:

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.

 My review:

“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.”

Wow this was one complex and mind popping book.  Ten years ago atomic bombs were detonated on Earth; a select few were allowed to escape the detonations by entering a dome.  This dome protected those inside and a new self sufficient community was made.  Meanwhile those outside the dome “the wretches” were left to survive.  Their bodies twisted, scarred and fused to everyday objects.  Life is a constant struggle for them.

This book did take me a good, and I mean a good few chapters to settle into.  I think it is the sheer detail to the story that just boggles the mind.  When you learn about each character you really do settle into the story.  I thought this book was very good and I loved the way the story panned out, I was taken by surprise in a couple of places, and I really like that in a book.  I mean who likes predictable books?!?

My favourite character was Pressia Belze, what a lovely gutsy character

she was.  We meet Pressia around the time of her 16^th Birthday.  One of her hands is fused into a doll head that she was holding at the time of the detonations.  This girl has to grow up so fast to deal with the chaos that erupts when she meets a “pure”.  I loved the romance between Pressia and Bradwell, it was sweet and just shows that love can occur in the most horrendous places.

I do think that books which have an element of things that could be possible and believable certainly make you think more about the world around you.  This story could in theory come true in a few decades time.  Pretty scary stuff.....

Lots of detail and some really good characters.  I really liked the way the story was written; it didn’t boggle the reader with too much science fact and science talk, but just enough for readers to grasp the enormity of a nuclear holocaust. 

Story rating: 4/5 – weird and wonderful.  A fast paced ride.

Cover rating: 4/5  I love the butterfly in the dome, certainly a very suitable cover that relates to the story.

About the Author:

 

 Critically acclaimed, bestselling author Julianna Baggott also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode. She has published seventeen books over the last ten years. Film rights for her forthcoming novel PURE have been acquired by Fox 2000. The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, written under pen name Asher, was published in spring 2011. There are approximately 50 foreign editions of her novels to date.

Julianna began publishing when she was twenty-two and sold her first novel while still in her twenties. After receiving her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she published her first novel, Girl Talk, which was a national bestseller and was quickly followed by Boston Globe bestseller The Miss America Family, and then Boston Herald Book Club selection, The Madam, an historical novel based on the life of her grandmother. She co-wrote Which Brings Me to You with Steve Almond, A Best Book of 2006 (Kirkus Reveiws) optioned by producer Richard Brown and adapted by Keith Bunin with Matthew Warchus set to direct.

Her Bridget Asher novels include The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, The Pretend Wife, My Husband's Sweethearts. More info can be found at her Bridget Asher blog.

She also writes bestselling novels for younger readers under the pen name N.E. Bode as well as under Julianna Baggott. The Anybodies trilogy was a People Magazine pick alongside David Sedaris and Bill Clinton, a Washington Post Book of the Week, a Girl's Life Top Ten, a Booksense selection, and was in development at Nickelodeon/Paramount; The Slippery Map (fall 2007), and the prequel to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007), a movie starring Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and Jason Bateman. For two years, Bode was a recurring personality on XM Sirius Radio.

Julianna's Boston Red Sox novel The Prince of Fenway Park (HarperCollins), was published in spring 2009. It is on the Sunshine State Young Readers Awards List for 2011-2012.
The Ever Breath (Random House) was published in December, 2009.

Baggott also has a highly acclaimed career as a poet, having published three collections of poetry and having been published in the best literary publications in the country, including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and Best American Poetry in 2001 and 2011.

Baggott's work has appeared in over a hundred publications, including the The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Glamour, Ms., Real Simple, and read on NPR's Here and Now, All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation. Her essays, stories, and poems are highly anthologized.

She is an associate professor at Florida State University's Creative Writing Program.

In 2006, Baggott and her husband co-founded the nonprofit organization Kids in Need - Books in Deed, that focuses on literacy and getting free books to underprivileged children in the state of Florida.