Title: Ruins
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher/Year: Harper Collins 3/11/14
Length: 464 Pages
Series: Partials #3
Overview
Our time is almost up.
As the clock ticks closer and closer to the final Partial expiration date, humans and Partials stand on the brink of war. Caught in the middle, thousands of miles apart, are Samm and Kira: Samm, who is trapped on the far side of the continent beyond the vast toxic wasteland of the American Midwest; and Kira, now in the hands of Dr. Morgan, who is hell-bent on saving what’s left of the Partials, even if she has to destroy Kira to do it.
The only hope lies in the hands of the scattered people of both races who seek a way to prevent the rapidly escalating conflict. But in their midst appears a mysterious figure, neither human nor Partial, with solemn warnings of a new apocalypse—one that none of them may be able to avert.
The final installment in the Partials Sequence is a thrill ride of epic proportions, as the last remnants of life on our planet fight to determine its final fate.
My Thoughts
I feel like the plot lines of this final installment became more divergent (sorry for the wording here) – but that’s honestly a GREAT thing . When we left off in book 2, we were on 1 true journey, and maybe a 2nd sub story, but book 3 really makes things even more complicated and faster paced.
We learned that Kira and Samm made it to ParaGen in Denver and found that there was a civilization alive of humans that were able to successfully reproduce. We also learned that it was due to the capture of 10 Partials who were harvested on an on-going basis for their blood/phermones which is the only cure to RM and a way to keep humans alive.
The question is, what is the cure to the Expiration date which is plaguing the Partials and killing them off? If that wasn’t a strong enough plot line to stand on it’s own and to keep readers interested (i know that i would have been intrigued given all the medical and tech speak so far), there’s so much more going on. There’s a division of people in East Meadow and even along the NY/CT border. Partials are fighting Partials, Humans are not sure what to do, and during this, there are even bands of humans and Partials that are working together.
What i loved about this final installment is that we had learned a lot about The Trust in the first installments, but not about all of them. in this book, we really learn a lot more about most – and there are interesting twists the whole way through. when you think that you have discovered who one may be, you’re not necessarily right, and you’ll never understand their motivation or what side they were on since the Trust didn’t trust each other.
We go on the journey with Nandita and the girls who we learn are also not really human, and i still don’t know if we can trust Nandita and understand which side she’s on. We continue on the journey of trying to figure out who Kira’s father was – and while we uncover that he was the leader of the Trust, we don’t know what his end goal was – and we’re not sure that we’ll ever know since no one knows where he is. what we do find are Paritals that have even more gene mods than others had ever seen before, making them even more efficient killers and particularly dangerous – making things even more complicated for Kira and her gang. At the same time, we continue to see human leaders go rogue and not in a good way.
All throughout this story, the big questions continue to be around whether the nuke will be detonated and what that will mean for the east coast. We also wonder who’s going to survive – if the only baby that will live is Arwen or if Khan will live too and even if we’ll ever understand what’s going on with him. What’s causing his disease since it’s not RM exactly.
it’s jam packed full of excitement, death unfortunately, but bonds form where they were never expected. I really enjoyed this finale – and i think that it brought so many things to closure that we really needed to see. While you lose hope during the book, and not all of it is restored since there’s a dark and ugly twist in everything, you get the closure that is to be expected and the wrap up of a story of survival and friendship.
What i really wanted to find out is how the love triangle/quadrangle would play out and i was a bit nervous for a long time while reading this. Not only do we not know if Samm and Kira will ever be united again, we see the feelings come back up for Marcus and Kira when they cross paths eventually and that just makes things all that much more interesting. Heron and Calix don’t leave Samm wanting for attention though – that’s for sure – and that makes the dynamic even more compelling to read. Marcus’ comic relief throughout is also a great way to take things down the notch when necessary given the serious tone of most of the book.
All in all, very pleased with how the story progressed, and the path that it took us. If only we could really see how things turned out after the last page – but,…..i guess that’s all to be in our imagination. Now hopefully we don’t have to worry about things like all this happening in the next 50 years or so – which is when the story takes place – but i guess we’ll never know.