Jackie " found this sophisticated novel fascinating ... it left me with many things to ponder. "

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

Dan Wells, acclaimed author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, takes readers on a pulse-pounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question—one where our humanity is both our greatest liability and our only hope for survival.

Jackie says:

"Dan Wells (I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster) has joined the stampede of 'adult' authors trying their hands at YA fiction.  Having read this book, I have to say that while the heroine is 16, this is a novel that will go over with all sorts of ages.  Yes, it deals with a dystopian scenario--99.9 percent of people in the New York area (and so, presumably, the rest of America if not the world) have been wiped out by a virus which was, they think, released by Partials, genetically engineered super soldiers who were designed as a defense in the last "great war," then turned on their makers.  The virus not only killed millions of people immediately, it's now preventing any growth in the human sector--babies die within days, or hours, of their births.  Only a handful of humans, and a million Partials, are immune.  No one has seen a Partial in 11 years, though they've seen evidence of their continued existence across the Sound (the human side of this story takes place on what was Long Island).

Kira is working as a medic and after the 5000th infant death at her hospital, she sees clearly that the search for the cure must take a radical new direction--they must study the immune to learn about what it takes to BE immune.  Unfortunately, it turns out that even the human survivors like Kira are carriers of the virus.  So she hatches a covert plan to capture a Partial, just she and a few well trained friends. 

This is a very military oriented book, with no small amount of violence and a great deal of science (served up in heavy but very clear doses).  There's also a great deal of social/political machinations involved throughout the whole book.  I found this sophisticated novel fascinating on many, many levels; it left me with many things to ponder.  And certainly there is a cliffhanger of an end as this is a planned series.  I absolutely will recommend this book to anyone 16+."